Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/40

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xxxvi
INTRODUCTION.

bachiana, I copy this fragment of a German Gospel of the Infancy in metre:—

Hie hebet sich an Marien leben.
Uns leret dis buch furbass me
Das in dem lande zu Galilee
In einer Stat die was genant
Nazareth und was wol bekant
Da was eyn riche Man gesessen
Zu Togenden was er wol vormessen.
Er was geheissen Joachim,
Nach Gotes Dinste stunt sin Synne
Er was geborn von eyme geslechte,
Konig Davides mit allem rechte.[1]

The table of contents shows that the poem extended from the exclusion of Joachim out of the temple to the reception of Mary in heaven after the assumption; it therefore includes the Gospel narrative, as well as several apocryphal stories.

M. Brunet extracts from the "Lexique Roman" of M. Raynouard, part of a Gospel of the Infancy in the dialect current in the south of France in the 13th century.

The old traveller, Sir John Maundeville, a great collector of legends, brought home a version of the legend of Seth, which we find in the second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus. Doubtless there are

  1. Bibl. Uffenb. Part IV. p. 41.