“Book about the childhood of the Savior (excerpts), or ‘Liber de infantia Salvatoris’ [cod. Arundel 404 from the British Museum]”
Translated from Spanish «Los Evangelios Apócrifos», Aurelio de Santos Otero (1956)
Santos de Otero writes:
“Among the many apocryphal narratives dependent, closely or remotely, on the Protoevangelium, we choose the Liber de infantia Saltatoris for its abundant features of originality.”
“This compilation is contained in two noticeably different reviews: a) Code. Arundel from the British Museum (14th century) f.1-19; c. 1-102. b) Code. Hereford, Chapter, O. 3-9 (13th century) f.114-133; c.1-100. The first, whose content denotes greater antiquity, attributes the narrative to Saint Matthew and includes as a prologue the letter of Saint Jerome to Chromatius and Heliodorus found in the Ps. Mt. [Pseudo-Matthew] The second, from a later and more diffuse period, gives Santiago as the supposed author, like the Prot. Both were published by M. R. James in 1927.”
“Given the great similarity that exists between this apocryphal and the Ps. Mt. (sometimes true interpolations occur), the priority relationship between the two is discussed. Although the issue is not definitively resolved and the opinions of critics are mixed, it seems that the opinion that considers our apocrypha as a source of inspiration for Ps should be discarded. Mt. and, therefore, previous.”
“The style, in fact, is far from reflecting that artificial naivety characteristic of the ancient apocrypha. Its fluid and novelistic character, as well as elegant, shows the hand of a scholarly Carolingian compiler (9th century) who has been collecting various data and amalgamating them into a personal composition. His work has consisted, above all, in profusely completing with all kinds of picturesque details the episodes already known, but susceptible of interest; in recasting others according to his own taste and in lightly alluding to those that were already too well known. There can certainly be quite ancient episodes unknown to the present (especially those referring to birth), which James makes depend on the ancient Gospel of Peter (2nd century); but these, in Cecchelli’s phrase, ‘provano tutt’al più la utilizzazione di altri testi oltre il Protovangelo di Giacomo e lo Pseudo Matteo, non la grande antichità di tutta la redazione attuale.’ [‘at most the use of other texts beyond the Protoevangelium of James and the Pseudo Matthew proves it, not the great antiquity of the entire current editorial’]”
“The desire to make clear what is related to Mary’s virginity means that expressions with a marked doctrinal flavor are sometimes found in the story, which does not prove, however, that the author was formally a heretic.”