The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew · 3

XXXI. Zachyas said: Give him to me and I will take him to Levi who shall teach him letters. Levi bade him answer to Aleph: he was silent. Levi smote him with a rod of storax on the head. Jesus: Why smitest thou me? Know of a truth that he which is smitten teacheth the smiter more than he is taught of him. For I can teach thee the things that thou thyself sayest. But all these which speak and hear are blind like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal wherein is. no perception of those things that are signified by their sound. Further he said to Zachyas (?): Every letter from Aleph to Thau is discerned by the arrangement of it. Do thou then first say what Thau is, and I will tell thee what Aleph is. And again he said: They that know not Aleph, how can they tell Thau, hypocrites that they are? Say ye what Aleph is first and then will I believe you when ye say Beth. (I quote this to show how the text is conflated out of various earlier forms.) He said to the master: Let the master of the law say what the first letter is, or why it hath many triangles (eight adjectives follow). Levi was stupefied and then began to lament: Ought he to live on the earth? Nay, rather is he worthy to be hung on a great cross. He can put out fire and escape all torments by guile. I think he was born before the flood, before the deluge. What womb bare him? What mother gave him birth? What breasts suckled him? I fly before him, &c., &c.

Jesus smiled and said with command to all the children of Israel that stood and heard him: Let the unfruitful bear fruit, and the blind see, and the lame walk straight, and the poor enjoy good things, and the dead revive, and every one return into a restored state, and abide in him who is the root of life and of everlasting sweetness. All were healed who had fallen into evil infirmities. No one thereafter dared to say aught to him or hear aught of him.

(This speech is simplified from every trace of mystery.)

XXXII. At Nazareth the boy Zeno fell from the soler and was raised. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus went thence to Jericho.

XXXIII. Jesus' pitcher was broken by a child, and he brought water in his cloak.

XXXIV. He took a little corn out of his mother's barn and sowed it. When reaped it made three cors, which he gave away.

(Another manuscript has a form like that of the Latin Thomas.)

XXXV–XXXVI do not occur in Thomas nor in the manuscript just mentioned.

​XXXV. There is a road from Jericho to Jordan, at the place where Israel crossed and the ark rested. Jesus, eight years old, went from Jericho to Jordan. On the way there was a vault (crypta), where was a lioness with whelps. He went in and sat there, and the whelps played about him: the older lions stood at a distance and adored him, wagging their-tails. The people who saw it said that he or his parents must have sinned or he would not have delivered himself to the lions. Then he came forth and the lions went before him, and the whelps played before his feet. His parents and the people looked on. Jesus said: How much better than you are the beasts which know me and are tame, while men know me not.

XXXVI. Then he went over Jordan, whose waters were divided, with the lions: and told them in the hearing of all to go back home and hurt no one. And so they did.

XXXVII–XXXIX are again from Thomas.

XXXVII. A bed of six cubits was ordered of Joseph, and he told his lad to cut a beam of the right length, but he made it too short. Joseph was troubled. Jesus pulled it out to the right length.

(The change is made in order to free Joseph from the charge of stupidity.)

XXXVIII. He went to school the second time. 'Say Alpha.' Jesus: Tell thou me first what Beta is, and I will tell thee what Alpha is. The master smote him and died.

Joseph said to Mary: Know verily that my soul is sorrowful even unto death because of this boy. It may chance that any one may smite him in malice and he may die. Mary said: O man of God, believe not that this can happen, but believe surely that he who sent him to be born among men will keep him from all malice and in his name preserve him from evil.

XXXIX. For the third time they took him to school at the request of others, though they knew that it was not possible for a man to teach him. He entered the school, took the book from the master's hand, and taught—not what was written in it—like a torrent of water flowing from a living fountain. All marvelled, and the master adored him. Joseph ran thither in fear. The master said: You have given me no scholar but a teacher! Who can ascertain his words? Then was fulfilled the word: 'The river of God is full of water. Thou hast prepared their food, for thus is the preparation thereof.'

XL is not in Thomas.

XL. They removed to Capernaum. A rich man named Joseph fell ill and died. Jesus heard the mourning and said to Joseph: Why dost thou not do him a service since he is of thy name? Joseph: What can I do? Jesus: Take the kerchief that is on thy head and go and put it on his face and say: Christ save thee. He did so and said: Jesus save thee. The dead man was raised and asked who Jesus was.

​XLI. They moved from Bethlehem to Capernaum (perhaps it should be vice versa). Joseph sent his eldest son James into the garden to gather herbs for pottage. Story of the viper as in Thomas.

XLII is a conclusion, not in Thomas.

When Joseph came to a feast with his sons James, Joseph, Juda, and Simeon, and his two daughters, Jesus and Mary came with her sister Mary of Cleophas, whom the Lord gave to her father Cleophas and her mother Anna because they had offered Mary the mother of Jesus to the Lord, and this other was give for their consolation and called by the same name. When they were together Jesus blessed and sanctified them, and was the first to eat and drink, for no one ventured even to sit down until he had done so, and all waited for him if he was not there. And his brethren watched him ever and feared him. And when he slept by day or by night the light of God shone always over him.

To whom be all praise and glory, world without end. Amen.

The real importance of Pseudo-Matthew lies not so much in the stories which it preserves, as in the fact that it was the principal vehicle by which they were known to the Middle Ages and the principal source of inspiration to the artists and poets of the centuries from the twelfth to the fifteenth. It is upon this text that the many vernacular versions for the most part depend; and by this that the pictures of the Rejection of Joachim's offering, his meeting with Anne at the Golden Gate, the Presentation of the Virgin, the Repose in Egypt, and the few that we have of the Infancy Miracles, are inspired.