The Book of James.

        Around the middle of the second century the desire to set forth an account of the early life of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus led some unknown Christian, probably in Egypt, to write a short story about these events. It was a rather small book, in Greek, consisting of no more than forty-nine pages; but it contained a whole series of striking narratives.

        It begins with the conception and birth of Mary, in answer to prayer, and apparently miraculous, very much like the account of Samuel's birth in I Samuel. When she is three years old, she is taken to the temple and kept there through her childhood until her marriage at the age of twelve to Joseph, a widower with sons. The annunciation, conception, journey to Bethlehem, and birth of Jesus in a cave follow. The midwife who is summoned finds Mary still a virgin. At the moment of Jesus' birth all nature, animate and inanimate, stops transfixed. The Magi bring their gifts; Herod kills the infant children; the infant John is miraculously preserved, but Herod puts John's father, Zacharias, to death. In the closing lines James, meaning the Lord's brother, declares himself the writer, and Jerusalem the place of writing.

        The story about the escape of John and the death of Zacharias is sometimes regarded as an addition to the little story; the abrupt appearance of Joseph as narrator-”Now 1, Joseph, was walking, and walked not” (18:2)-may suggest that another source is being used (I8:2-I9:I); but literature produced by non-literary writers is not always fully coherent. The title of the work provided in a third-century Greek papyrus, “Revelation of James-Generation [genesis] of Mary,” points to the notion that even early copyists found the book rather disjointed.[20]

        The theory that James was written in Egypt is based primarily on the fact that Origen was the first to use it explicitly; he says that Jesus' brothers were the sons of Joseph by a former wife, basing this upon the Book of James (On the Gospel of Matthew 13: 55). Clement of Alexandria, a few years earlier (A.D. 190-210), may have known the book, or at least part of its story, for he states that Mary, after she had brought forth, was found, when examined, to be a virgin (Miscellanies vii. 16. 93). This is exactly what is stated in chapters I9 and 20. Half a century earlier, Justin in his Dialogue (ca. A.D. 155-60) describes Jesus' birth as taking place in a cave near Bethlehem (chap. 78); but this may have been just a bit of current tradition and does not prove the Book of James as old as Justin's times. Justin also speaks of Mary as descended from David (Dialogue c. 3), as the Book of James does (10:1).

        Epiphanius certainly knew the book (Heresies lxxix. 5), which he calls the story and traditions of Mary, and the “Decree of Gelasius,” now assigned to the sixth century, repudiates it as heretical or schismatic along with a considerable list of such gospels, calling it the “Gospel under the name of James the Less.”

        We have seen gospels that were written to support heretical views; here is one written in support of views that were coming to be held as orthodox. The perpetual virginity of Mary, the doctrine that Jesus' brothers were sons of Joseph by a former marriage, and apparently even the idea that Mary herself was miraculously conceived are the views it was intended to promote. It also assumed the continuity of Christianity with Judaism.

        But from a historical point of view the Book of James leaves much to be desired. No gospel is more completely fiction. The story of Mary's life in the temple from her third to her twelfth year, like that of some pagan vestal virgin, is altogether impossible; nothing could have been more repugnant to Judaism. The idea of all nature standing still at the moment of the Nativity is an obvious bit of folklore. The book is strongly influenced by the story of the birth of Samuel and shows the use of all four of our gospels as well.

        This little work, about the length of a modern short story, has gone by a variety of names; the numerous late Greek manuscripts (there is no ancient Latin version) entitle it a narrative, or account; Origen calls it the “Book of James”; the “Gelasian Decree” calls it the “Gospel of James the Less.” Its modern discoverer, Guillaume Postel, called it the “Protevangelium,” or “Proto-Gospel.”

        Although often frowned upon by church authorities, the Book of James survived, largely unaltered, and had a wide literary influence. It became the source of the Coptic history of Joseph the Carpenter, of the Gospel ofthe Pseudo-Matthew, of the Nativity of Mary, and of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. It was summarized in the thirteenth century (A.D. 1275) in the Golden Legend (v. 96), and it has been drawn upon in a number of present-day gospel imitations, such as the Aquarian Gospel. Its scenes were richly illustrated by Italian painters-Giotto (“The Exclusion of Joachim from the Temple”), Raphael (“Betrothal of the Virgin”), Titian (“The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple”), Ghirlandaio (“The Birth of the Virgin,” “The Marriage of the Virgin”), and many others.

        Two explicitly Gnostic gospels were fairly well known to some of the church writers. The first, the Gospel of Truth, was a product of Valentinus, according to Irenaeus (Against Heresies iii. 11. 9), who says that it shows no agreement with the “gospels of the apostles,” and indeed is totally unlike them. Goodspeed rightly supposed that it was not a gospel at all but simply a presentation of Valentinian views, although in its time it may have stood fairly close to orthodoxy. It must have been written around the middle of the second century. The second, the Gospel of Philip, “the holy disciple,” is mentioned by Epiphanius about 374 as being in use among Egyptian Gnostics of his day (Heresies xxvi. 13). He quotes a few sentences, beginning, “The Lord revealed to me what the soul must say as it goes up to heaven, and how it must answer each of the powers above.” The answers to be given the powers follow. It is significant that in the Pistis Sophia, which contains supposed revelations made by Jesus to his disciples after his resurrection, it is Philip who is writing them down, and Philip, Thomas, and Matthew are named as the three witnesses who are to record these revelations (Pistis Sophia, 69 ff.). This suggests that the Gospel of Philip was written by this time and probably as early as the late second century.

        Among the less well-known gospels produced in Gnostic circles we should first mention the Gospel of Judas, which Irenaeus tells us was used among the Cainites (Refutation 1. 31. 1; see also Epiphanius, Heresies xxxviii. 1. 3). This group derived its name from its view that Old and New Testament personages who were hostile to the Creator-like Cain-were beloved by the heavenly Wisdom. Judas saw that Jesus was reluctant to be crucified; he therefore betrayed him, so that the mystery of redemption could be carried through. Other such works are the Gospel of Eve, from which Epiphanius quotes (Heresies xxvi. 2, 3), and the Gospel of Perfection, which he mentions in the same passage. From Nag Hammadi in Egypt comes the still unpublished Gospel of the Egyptians or Book of the Great Invisible Spirit. Enough is known of this book to show that it is not the Egyptians we have already discussed.

        Mention of Nag Hammadi leads us to consider the most extensive discovery of Christian or pseudo-Christian literature in modern times. In 1945-46 there was found a jar that contained thirteen leather-bound books written on papyrus in Coptic-partly Sahidic, partly sub-Akhmimic-during the fourth and fifth centuries. These books constitute a Gnostic library unparalleled in importance. Accounts of them have been provided by various scholars, especially J. Doresse[21] and H.-C. Puech,[22] but relatively few of them have been published as yet. Those published come from the first five codices according to the new numbering system.