The Gospel of St. James , also known as the Proto-Gospel of St. James and the First Gospel of St. James the Younger , in the Russian tradition “St. James the Tale” [1] , is an apocryphal gospel written in the II century and, as expected, after 160 . The Greek term “proto-gospel” means a book of events of the life of Jesus Christ that occurred before the main events of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament . The gospel of Jacob tells of the childhood and youth of the Virgin Mary and the events during the birth of Christ in the cave. The book also describes the death of Father John the Baptist Zechariah .
| Nativity of Mary the Holy Virgin and the glorious mother of Jesus Christ. | |
|---|---|
| Γέννησις Μαρίας της αγίας Θεοτόκου και υπερενδόξου μητρός Ιησού Χριστού | |
 The Gospel of Jacob. Manuscript of the 16th century . British library | |
| Genre | Apocrypha |
| Original language | ancient greek |
| Date of writing | II century (after 160) |
The Gospel of Jacob is perhaps the earliest text certifying the worship of the Virgin Mary , affirming Her eternal virginity and presenting Her as the new Eve . As the "Gospel of Childhood," the text traces the author’s ignorance of the details of the life of Jewish society and their inconsistency with the details described in the books included in the Bible . Despite its appeal, not one of the Gospels of Childhood was included in the Bible. The work was criticized by Jerome Stridonsky , and in the same V century it was included in the list of banned books.
In 1552, the Frenchman Guillaume Postel translated the essay into Latin and first printed it under the name: lat. “Protevangelium Iacobi” - “The Proto-Gospel of Jacob”; after him, in 1564, the Greek text of the essay was first published by Mikhail Neander in the appendix to the Small Catechism of Martin Luther under the same name: Dr. Greek. “Πρωτευαγγέλιον Ιακώβου” , since that time the name “The Proto-Gospel of Jacob” was fixed in publications and in the scientific literature.
Content
Authorship
The text of the essay contains the statement that it was written by Jacob : “ And I, Jacob, who wrote this story in Jerusalem, was hiding in the wilderness during the time of unrest until Herod died and the unrest subsided in Jerusalem. ". From which it is assumed that the author of the book is Jacob, the son of Joseph , the husband of Mary, from his previous marriage. But, based on the book’s presentation style and the fact that the author of the book is obviously not familiar with the Jewish customs of the times described in the book, the researchers found that Jacob could not be the author of the book.
Popularity and listings
The popularity of the text in ancient times is evidenced by the fact that to date, about 130 manuscripts containing this gospel have been preserved. It has been translated into Syriac , Ethiopian , Coptic , Georgian , Old Slavonic , Armenian , Arabic , Irish and Latin .
The oldest manuscript containing the Gospel of James ( Bodmer’s Papyrus 5 , dating from the 3rd and early 4th centuries [2] [3] ), was found in 1952 (Bodmer’s Papyrus 5, published in 1958), is stored in the library Bodmer in Geneva . The title of the essay in Bodmer Papyrus 5 is “Mary's Christmas. The Revelation (Apocalypse) of Jacob ” [4] .
Of the Greek manuscripts that have survived to our times, the most complete text is the codex of the X century in the National Library of France . The work in Greek manuscripts has other names: “The Nativity of Mary the Holy Virgin and the glorious mother of Jesus Christ” [5] , “The story of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Virgin Mary” [6] and others [7] .
Texts
- The Proto-Gospel of Jacob — original text (dr. Greek)
Notes
- ↑ from the 12th century
- ↑ Papyrus Bodmer V. Nativité de Marie. Published by Michel Testuz. Cologny — Geneva: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1958. 127 pp.
- ↑ Πρωτευαγγέλιον Ιακώβου
- ↑ other Greek "Γένεσις Μαρίας. Αποκάλυψις Ιακώβ »
- ↑ other Greek "Γέννησις Μαρίας της αγίας Θεοτόκου και υπερενδόξου μητρός Ιησού Χριστού"
- ↑ other Greek "Λόγος ιστορικός εις το γενέσιον της υπεραγίας Θεοτόκου και αειπαρθένου Μαρίας"
- ↑ Protevangelium Jacobi (PJ): An Introduction By Chris Jordan
Literature
- Tkachenko A.A. , Turilov A.A. , Kvlividze N.V. Jacob Proto-Gospel // Orthodox Encyclopedia . - M .: Church and Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia" , 2009. - T. XX. - S. 567-576. - 752 s. - 39,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89572-036-3 .
- The Proto-Gospel of Jacob // Sventsitskaya I.S. , Trofimova M.K. Apocrypha of Ancient Christians: Research, texts, comments / Acad. societies, sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU . Institute of Science atheism ; Editorial board: A.F. Okulov (previous) and others .-- M .: Thought , 1989 .-- 336 p. - (Scientific-atheist. Bk). ISBN 5-244-00269-4
- Meshcherskaya “The Proto-Gospel of Jacob in the Syrian Tradition” p. 13
- ΠΡΩΤΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟ ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ