The suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the original New Testament of Jesus the Christ, Complete. William Wake

      REFERENCES TO MARY'S GOSPEL

      [In the primitive ages there was a Gospel extant bearing this name,

       attributed to St. Matthew, and received as genuine and authentic by

       several of the ancient Christian sects. It is to be found in the works

       of Jerome, a Father of the Church, who flourished in the fourth century,

       from whence the present translation is made. His contemporaries,

       Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, and Austin also mention a gospel under

       this title. The ancient copies differed from Jerome's, for from one of

       them the learned Faustus, a native of Britain, who became Bishop of Riez,

       in Provence, endeavoured to prove that Christ was not the Son of God till

       after his baptism; and that he was not of the house of David and tribe of

       Judah, because, according to the Gospel he cited, the Virgin herself was

       not of this tribe, but of the tribe of Levi; her father being a priest of

       the name of Joachim. It was likewise from this Gospel that the sect of

       the Collyridians established the worship and offering of manchet bread

       and cracknels, or fine wafers, as sacrificed to Mary, whom they imagined

       to have been born of a Virgin, as Christ is related in the Canonical

       Gospels to have been born of her. Epiphanius likewise cites a passage

       concerning the death of Zacharias, which is not in Jerome's copy, viz.:

       "That it was the occasion of the death of Zacharias in the temple, that

       when he had seen a vision, he, through surprise, was willing to disclose

       it, and his mouth was stopped. That which he saw was at the time of his

       offering incense, and it was a man standing in the form of an ass.

       When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus to the people, Woe

       unto you, whom do you worship? he who had appeared to him in the temple

       took away the use of his speech. Afterwards when he recovered it, and was

       able to speak, he declared this to the Jews; and they slew him. They add

       (viz. the Gnostics in this book), that on this very account the

       high-priest was appointed by their lawgiver (by God to Moses) to carry

       little bells, that whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice he,

       whom they worshipped, hearing the noise of the bells, might have time

       enough to hide himself, and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure."

       The principal part of this Gospel is contained in the Protevangelion of

       James which follows next in order.]