II.
THE GOSPEL OF PSEUDO-MATTHEW,
or of the infancy of mary and of jesus.
This composition is extant in Latin in different forms. Thilo published a recension of it containing chaps, i.–xxv., and ending with the return of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus from Egypt; but the text followed by Tischendorf, and here translated, includes a narration of subsequent occurrences. Two letters relating to some such document are by Tischendorf prefixed to this, and probably he is right, but it has not been deemed necessary to give them here. The first letter pretends to be addressed to Jerome by two bishops, Chromatius and Heliodorus, requesting him to translate it out of Hebrew. The second letter, in the name of Jerome, refers to the fulfilment of the request, and ascribes the book to a certain Leucius, a Manichæan. Both letters must be rejected as spurious, but the work itself may belong to the fifth century. The Scripture texts quoted do not always accord with the version of Jerome, but some of them
