“Syriac Infancy Gospel”
From “Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8”, Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
The “Syriac Infancy Gospel”, also known as the “Arabic Infancy Gospel”, is a New Testament apocryphal writing concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was partly based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of James, and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, though much of it is also based on oral tradition. The only two surviving manuscripts date from 1299 AD and the 15th/16th century in Arabic. They were copied in the area of northern Iraq and show influence from the Quran.