Apocryphicity

In Fall 2008 moviegoers will be able to see a film adaptation of Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (read the press release HERE). I read the book soon after its release and made some notes on its use of Christian Apocrypha. This is as good a time as any to share those notes. 

The book tells the story of the Holy Family’s return from Egypt to their hometown of Nazareth. The story is told from Jesus’ perspective, but as an adult reflecting on his childhood. It opens with a seven-year-old Jesus in Alexandria, surrounded by his family, which includes Mary and her brother Cleopas, Joseph and his brothers Alphaeus and Simon, Jesus’ aunts Salome, Esther and Mary, Jesus’ cousins Little Joses, Judas, Little Symeon and Salome, and big brother James, the child of Joseph from a previous marriage (recalling the explanation for the brothers of Jesus given in the Protoevangelium of James).

Joseph and his brothers are employed in Egypt as carpenters. After Joseph completes a project for Philo, the famous teacher meets Jesus, who he calls “the most promising scholar he has ever seen” (p. 14). But things go wrong for the family when Jesus curses a boy, Eleazer, in the marketplace. The miracle echoes Infancy Thomas ch. 4, though in the gospel Jesus is five, not seven, and in Nazareth, not Egypt. Infancy Thomas is employed again when James recalls having seen Jesus make birds from clay on the Sabbath (Infancy Thomas ch. 2-3) and perhaps in the description of Jesus’ and James’ teacher, who teaches the boys Greek (Infancy Thomas 6 and 14). Breaking from the gospel, Rice’s Jesus revives the boy and is confused about the origins of his powers; indeed the curse was accidental in Rice’s book.

As the family journey home, the young Jesus takes up a journey of discovery as he tries to learn the mysteries of his birth and infancy. The family seeks to insulate him from the horrors of the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem, and to keep a low profile to avoid other attempts on the boy’s life. As they head toward Nazareth, the family finds themselves part of several key events in first-century Judean history, including the riot in the Temple instigated by Archelaus, and the rebuilding of Sepphoris after the rebellion of Judas the Galilean. They also encounter some significant figures, many of whom are related to Jesus, including Elizabeth and John the Baptist (who here is revealed to be on his way to join the Essenes), Zebedee (who is married to Mary’s cousin, Mary Alexander), and Caiaphas (an uncle of Jesus).

As Jesus learns more about his origins, he learns also details about Mary’s life, details derived from the Protoevangelium of James. Mary is said to have been born in Sepphoris to her parents Joachim (a scribe) and Anna. Cleopas says of Mary: “A virgin child, a child in the service of the Temple of Jerusalem, to weave the great veil, with the other chosen ones, and then home under our eyes” (p. 46) (PJ ch. 10). As in Prot. Jas. a woman named Salome serves as midwife at Jesus’ birth, though Rice’s Salome is Mary’s sister and there is no gynecological exam (PJ ch. 19-20). And this birth takes place in a cave (PJ 18:1). Prot. Jas. also provides details about John the Baptist’s life. Elizabeth tells the story of the death of Zechariah (PJ ch. 23-24), at which time she and the child hid in the mountains (PJ ch. 22), though these mountains are said to be near the Essenes who helped the two fugitives by providing them with food.

In an appendix (“Author’s Notes”) Rice reveals the inspiration and intentions behind the book. She discusses her Catholic upbringing and long-standing interest in the origins of Christianity. In 2002 she came to a realization: “I wanted to write the life of Jesus Christ. I had known that years ago. But now I was ready. I was ready to do violence to my career. I wanted to write the book in the first person. Nothing else mattered. I consecrated the book to Christ” (p. 309). So Rice went to work on research. She was surprised at the variety: “I had no idea I was entering a field of research where no-one agreed on anything” (p. 310). She began with the skeptics but found that their arguments “lacked coherence,” “were not elegant”, “were full of conjecture”, and “absurd conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all” (p. 313). She cautions that these scholars “detest and despise Jesus Christ” (p. 315) and the reader should beware. She preferred conservative scholars such as Martin Hengel, Richard Bauckham, and N. T. Wright; she also found appealing the arguments of John A. T. Robinson on dating the gospels.

On the use of Christian Apocrypha, Rice says that she sought to write about the Jesus of the Gospels but was fascinated also by the apocrypha. “Ultimately,” she writes, “I chose to embrace this material, to enclose it within the canonical framework as best I could. I felt there was a deep truth in it, and I wanted to preserve that truth as it spoke to me. Of course that is an assumption. But I made it. And perhaps in assuming that Jesus did manifest supernatural powers at an early age I am somehow being true to the Council  of Chalcedon, that Jesus was God and man at all times” (p. 320).

Rice’s book is striking for its use of the CA despite the author’s Catholic background and appeal to conservative scholarship. Likely, neither fellow Catholics nor the scholars she values would think highly of her book. For CA scholars the book illustrates some of the motives behind the creation of the CA. First, Rice felt the need to appeal to the infancy gospels in order to fill gaps left by the canonical texts, a need felt also by the gospels’ authors. And Rice invented some stories of her own. Second, Rice expanded the canonical Jesus story out of piety (a motive often ascribed also to the infancy gospel writers), not to intentionally mislead believers nor to introduce heretical Christology. Rice, like other modern apocrypha creators (Mel Gibson anyone?), seems oblivious to the fact that she has created an apocryphon, i.e., that she has altered and expanded the canonical Jesus story by drawing upon old traditions and creating new ones. Perhaps the infancy gospel writers felt the same. Also Rice’s selectivity with the infancy gospels recalls the practice of copyists of the texts who certainly valued the gospels but transformed them to be less objectionable—for example, earlier forms of Infancy Thomas did not have Jesus revive those he cursed, nor did they have the beneficent miracles of chs. 10, 17 and 18.

Christ the Lord is not a sophisticated, nor a challenging treatment of the Life of Jesus. The film, if and when it is completed, will serve us best as a classroom tool to show contemporary use of apocryphal traditions. It may also stimulate discussion of the CA in popular forums. Until then, we can occupy ourselves with Rice's secondvoluyme in the life of Jesus: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, to be released in March 2008.

As part of my efforts to unravel the complexities of the transmission history of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, I have begun the process of collecting and collating the various Syriac manuscripts of the text. The Syriac tradition of IGT is very important—it is among the earliest evidence we have for the text (two manuscripts are from the 5/6th century) and it is the best witness for the “short” version of the text, a version that is likely to be closer to the original than the longer versions we have in the Greek manuscripts.

The evidence for Syriac IGT comes in three forms:

1. Two manuscripts featuring a compilation of the Protevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Assumption of the Virgin. One of these (London, British Library, Add. 14484 of the sixth century; =SyrW) was published in 1865. The second (Göttingen, Universitätsbibliothek, Syr. 10 of the fifth or sixth century; =SyrG) was collated against the first in 1993/1994. I have obtained copies of both manuscripts and confirmed their contents. Both contain apparent omissions (that is, when compared with what is known about the short version from other witnesses): SyrW is missing sections of chs. 6, 7 and 15; SyrG is missing sections of chs. 4, 5, 7, 19 and all of chs. 14 and 15.

The Infancy Gospel of James is featured prominently in a new book by Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts from Paraclete Press. An interview with the author is available here. The title is somewhat misleading (Infancy James has never really been “lost,” and calling it the Gospel of Mary leads to confusion with the Gnostic text of the same name). The following excerpt from the interview reveals which texts Mathewes-Green examines:

The first text, the “Gospel of Mary,” shows us Mary as an adorable little girl, and then as a teenager coping with a “crisis pregnancy” that could cause her execution as a suspected adultress. This was an extremely popular work among Eastern Christians (that is, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern) in the second century. Many of the stories here made it to Europe, but the intact text did not. A 16^th-century scholar who translated it into Latin named it “the Protevangelium of James;” this is how scholars know it today, but it’s not the original title (no one title stuck, actually). In this work, Mary is steadfast under this trial, and teaches us much about courage.

The other two texts illuminate other aspects of Mary’s role. The second is a very short prayer that was found on a scrap of papyrus in Egypt in 1917, and dated 250 AD; it is the earliest prayer to Mary. It begins, “Under your compassion we take refuge…”, and it’s still in use East and West (Roman Catholics know it as “Sub Tuum Praesidium.”) This second text shows us that early Christians believed that she (like all the saints) are alive in Christ’s presence and continually in prayer, so we can call on her as a prayer partner. The third text is a beautiful and intricately complex “sung sermon”, written around 520 A.D., which explores the mystery of the Incarnation and all the ways that Mary’s role is foreshadowed in Scripture.

I have made some changes to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas section of my web site. When I set up the site about six months ago I intended to make available new translations of various versions of the text. I have been slow to do so as the work on these translations has been progressing hand-in-hand with the revisions I am completing on the published version of my Ph. D. thesis. Much of the text-critical work on the book has been completed, so I will be adding new texts to the site within the coming days.

Today I added a new translation of the Syriac manuscripts, the Georgian text, and an English translation of the Ethiopic version graciously provided by Paul-Hubert Poirier. I have also added links to Ron Hock’s translation of the text and a few links to other sites hosting information on the gospel.

More to come…

As visitors to my main web site know, my principle area of study is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT). So it was with some excitement that I heard of J.K. Elliott’s A Synopsis of Apocryphal Nativity and Infancy Narratives (New Testament Tools and Studies 34; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006). Even today, relatively little attention has been paid to IGT, so any new work on the text is appreciated. And the synopsis promised to be a helpful tool. I ordered the book immediately (despite the high price: $159 US) and eagerly awaited its delivery.

Unfortunately, the book does not meet my expectations. In brief: the selection of texts is limited, the synopsis is awkward, and the scholarship is not always up-to-date. This is not the kind of quality I expected from Elliott, who is well-known for his books The Apocryphal New Testament and Art and the Christian Apocrypha (with David Cartlidge), and frequently contributes to the SBL Apocrypha section.

The texts featured in the synopsis include the “usual suspects” – Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Pseudo-Matthew, M.R. James’ Latin Infancy Gospel (Arundel 404), Birth of Mary, and Arabic Infancy Gospel. Included also are History of Joseph the Carpenter, the fragmentary Pap. Cairensis 10735, and the Irish texts Leabhar Breac and Liber Flavus  Fergusiorum. Elliott lists several other texts that could have been included—(e.g., Armenian Infancy Gospel and the Syriac Life of Mary) – but does not explain why he neglects them (p. xix). He primarily draws upon published English translations, many of them rather old—e.g., he uses older translations of the Irish material and the Arundel gospel despite the recent publication of new translations in McNamara’s volume for CCSA. To be fair, this decision may be based more on publisher’s proprietary interests than scholarly usefulness.

The synopsis is presented vertically, with each parallel printed after the next, rather than horizontally. The reason given is because “in many cases there are too many texts to have made parallel vertical columns practicable” (p. x). Nevertheless, the vertical layout reduces the synopsis’ utility. At times the Arundel and Irish texts are represented only by citations, presumably because the material is little different from the excerpts printed from the earlier texts. The stories appear in chronological order (running form the conception of Mary to Jesus at the age of 12) and include the tales from the canonical infancy narratives. On one occasion Elliott breaks from pattern to include a parallel from the Koran (Jesus animates the birds from Surah 3:49). While it is valuable for readers to observe this parallel, it makes one wonder why other parallels are not included—for example, the allusion to the same story in the Gospel of Bartholomew 2:11. Another peculiarity in the synopsis is the decision to print the three teacher stories from IGT 6, 14 and 15 one after the other, suggesting that Elliott believes them to be variants of the same story rather than tales with their own particular themes and concerns.

The synopsis is preceded with a brief discussion of the texts and select bibliographies. The IGT bibliography has some striking omissions: it neglects work on some important Syriac witnesses (Vat. syr. 159 discussed by P. Peeters in 1914, and Göttingen Syr. 10 published by W. Baars and J. Heldermann in 1993/1994), T. Rosén’s 1997 critical edition of the Slavonic  text, and my own 2001 Ph. D. dissertation on the Greek tradition (and Elliott is certainly aware of it). For his text of IGT Elliott relies on the translations he made of Tischendorf’s old and inadequate texts (Greek A, Greek B, and the prologue to the Latin version). The least Elliott could have done was to translate A. Delatte’s Greek D text, the source of Tischendorf’s Latin version. In addition, Elliott makes some erroneous remarks about the IGT material: referring to Ps. Matt. 26-42, a section added to late manuscripts of Ps. Matt. from an early Latin translation of IGT, he says “These chapters are what Tischendorf called the Pars Altera. They are found in later forms of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas” (p. 132 n. 1); and he states that the story of Jesus sowing a field (IGT 12) is not found in all manuscripts of the text when, in fact, it is. The synopsis fails to include also the story of Jesus Rides a Sunbeam which is found in several infancy gospel witnesses, including the Ethiopic version of IGT and some manuscripts of Ps. Matt.

Other texts in the Synopsis also rely on out-dated text-critical work: the translations of History of Joseph the Carpenter and Arabic Infancy Gospel are from 1870 and work on these texts by contributors to the Pléiade volumes appears neglected.

To its credit, Elliott’s synopsis presents the infancy stories in a nice, tidy volume and should bring attention to the little-known Irish traditions. It is unfortunate, however, that the book is not the tool that it could be and it will be some time before another attempt is made at such a project.