The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)/Infancy Gospels/A modern Infancy Gospel
A MODERN INFANCY GOSPEL
By way of a curiosity, and to dispel illusions that may perhaps be entertained, I add a short note on a modern forgery, 'The childhood of Christ—translated from the Latin by Henry Copley Greene, with original text of the manuscript at the monastery of St. Wolfgang. New York: Scott-Thaw Co. London: Burns & Oates. 1904.' This is the form in which some readers may have met the book. The original is: 'L'Évangile de la jeunesse de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ d'apres S. Pierre.' Latin text and French version by Catulle Mendés: Paris, Armand Colin, 1894. All that we are told of the provenance of the Latin text is that it was 'found some years ago in the ancient abbey of St. Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut'. The opening words of the prologue attribute the work to St. Peter. It is a sentimentalized compilation from Protevangelium, Pseudo-Matthew, the Latin Thomas, and the Arabic Gospel. It claims to be at least mediaeval in date, put the claim is made null by the simple fact that the Latin contains many phrases from Sike's Latin version of the Arabic Gospel, which was written in 1697. Perhaps one specimen of the turn which is given to the original stories may be given. In the case of the boy who runs against Jesus, Jesus laments, saying, 'Non ploro quia malum mihi inflixum est, sed quia malum altero inflixurus sum. Euh! frater mi,' &c, He then puts his hand on the boy’s forehead, saying, 'Quoniam pulsavisti, cade, et quoniam vitae in me currens offendisti, siste in morte'. (Because you have pushed me, fall; and because by running against me you have offended (or stumbled against) life, continue dead.) The boy dies and Jesus mourns for twelve days.
Presumably the Latin text as well as the French version may be regarded as the work of Catulle Mendés.
Three other modern forgeries about the Life of Christ I will just name—more to show my consciousness of their existence than because they are at all interesting. One is a life said to have been found in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, and connected with the name of Notovich as discoverer or translator. The second is a ridiculous and disgusting American book called 'The Archko Volume'. The third is the Letter of Benan (an Egyptian physician), shown by Professor Carl Schmidt (Der Benanbrief, 1919) to have been forged by Ernst Edler von der Planitz. This, I believe, had a great vogue recently in Central Europe, but I have never heard of it in an English dress.