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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23680	An Abridgment of the prerogatives of St. Ann, mother of the mother of God with the approbation of the doctors at Paris, and thence done into English to accompany The contemplations on the life and glory of Holy Mary, and the defence of the same, with some pieces of a like nature : to which a preface is added concerning the original of the story.	Cross, John, 1630-1689. Contemplations on the life and glory of Holy Mary the mother of Jesus.; Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing A108; ESTC R6614	31,825	46

shall show the Sign his Wife shall she be to keep Now the Heralds went over all the Land of Judea and the Trumpet of the Lord sounded and all ran forth and Joseph throwing away his Ax went out to meet them So they went all together to the H. Priest who taking the Rods they brought from them went into the Temple and pray'd after Prayer he took the Rods and went forth and restor'd to every one his Rod and no sign appear'd But Joseph took his the last and a Dove immediately flew out of it to the no small amazement of the spectators and lighted on Joseph 's head Vpon this the Priest said to him The Lord has chosen you to take this Virgin to keep her Which Joseph opposes making answer I have Children and am old whereas she is a young Girl whence I am afraid of becoming ridiculous to the Children of Israel At last the Vengeance being propos'd to him which God executed on Corah Dathan and Abiram being put by it into a dreadful fright he makes no longer resistance but says Mary I take thee from the Temple of the Lord but I will leave thee at home and go about my Carpenters Trade And I pray God to keep thee all the days of thy life Then we are told how not long after this the Priests had a Council about making a Veil to the Temple for which the Holy Maids of the House of David were call'd and all took their work by Lot true Purple falling to Mary's share About which time Zacharias dying is succeeded by Samuel Mary having receiv'd her Purple went to work and taking a Pitcher went to draw water and she heard a Voice Hail Mary full of Grace and she look'd about on both sides to know whence the Voice came but could see nothing She comes trembling into the House puts down her Pitcher and taking the Purple sat down in her seat to work and the Angel of the Lord stood before her and said Fear not Mary for thou c. Then are intermixt some Passages taken out of the Evangelists After which it 's said that she being six months gone and sixteen years old Joseph return'd from his business about which he had been some years without coming home to his Wife Now finding her big he was much startled and expostulated with her in many words but is at last advertis'd of the whole matter by an Angel. But the pity was that a Scribe coming to speak with Joseph perceives Mary great with Child and upon this makes a terrible outcry Immediately Justice lays hold on Joseph and he is brought before the H. Priest and being both examin'd he maintains that he had not kept company with her and she says with a great deal of bitter crying that she had neither his nor any other Mans. They both denying the Priest makes them drink the Water of Redargution which having done them no hurt to the great astonishment of the beholders the Priest said that since God had not manifested their sin neither did he condemn them Then is inserred what is related by St. Luke how upon the Edict of Augustus Joseph leads her to Bethlehem But this is not without enriching the Relation and using even wicked and immodest expressions At last we are told how she was Deliver'd in a Cave saving S. Luke's Honour Joseph having found her a Midwife by a great Miracle and in his journey met with plenty of great Miracles which Midwife tells another who is call'd Salome who not believing that a Virgin had brought forth a Child comes to make the proof which is so profanely and impudently described together with other matters of as vile a nature as can well be imagined All which declare it to be made in derision of Christianity but that the better to make the Cheat pass there are inserted in form of Rapsody some Expressions of the Evangelists and some Rites to which colour may be given by some passages of the Old Testament besides the simplicity of the manner of Speech and several Hebraisms affected By the help of which he thought he might as he doth conclude I James writ this History in Jerusalem where a tumult being rais'd I withdrew my self into a desert place till the death of Herod and then like an Apostle he gives the Blessing The first Man that produced this rich Gospel and Translated it from the Greek was * Prot-evangelion cum Evangelica Historia S. Mari Evangelistae vita ejus in 8. Basil 1552. Postel and it came out with the Notes of Bibliander after which it appear'd with a great deal of suitable company under the Title of † Orthodoxagrapha Gr. Lat Editore Grynaeo Bald. 1569. Orthodox Writings which have as much right all of them to this Title as this Gospel has to the Brother of our Lord. This Book indeed is so agreable to the Genius of the first Publisher as to make ‖ L' Introduction au Traitè de la conformité des Merveilles Anciennes avec les Modernes ch 33. H. Stevens suspect him to have a finger in the Forgery But without defrauding him of the praises of handing it forth into the World we may reasonably allow it elder and probably the Original as hath been said of the Fable which is too believ'd by Casaubon This much is certain that the Gospel going under the name of S. James the Brother of our Lord is expresly nam'd and condemn'd as Apocryphal by ∴ An. 494. Con. Binii To. 2. p. 264. the Roman Synod under Gelasius about the latter end of the fifth Century as likewise the Book of the Nativity of our Saviour and concerning Mary and the Midwife with all those written by Leucius We have by the same Synod consisting of Seventy Bishops condemn'd the several Gospels passing under the names of Thaddeus Matthias Peter Barnaby Thomas Bartholomew Andrew which no doubt but were fill'd with such like Stories It is no wonder then if in the darker Ages such Trash came to be receiv'd when it was very hard to make things incredible enough to gain belief and no Superstition so gross as might not pass under those venerable Names We have not only the Book of the Infancy of Jesus and that of the Birth of Mary referr'd to by the Legendaries but some also were not asham'd to own the Gospel of S. Ann. An Instance whereof is given in one Bonaventure of Ipres in Flanders by H. Stevens telling us That When Jesus Christ was grown big enough to work Joseph began to employ him in his Trade and once above the rest having commanded him to Saw a piece of Wood he saw'd it without taking heed to the mark that Joseph had made so that it was too short at which Joseph being very angry threatn'd to beat him and would have done so had not he made it longer by taking himself one end and making Joseph take the other and each one pulling If such things as these are not a

whatever might prove the occasions The Enemy of Mankind was soon sensible of the Provision the Holy Ghost had made against the superstition which he design'd to introduce into the Church and therefore early sat his Instruments at work to prepare Materials Gospels were forg'd and put forth under the name of Apostles containing a Doctrine totally repugnant to theirs Nor could Satan ever have a more cunning device to weaken and depreciate those Instruments of our Salvation deliver'd to us by God than this of coining others For by giving false Scriptures not only those were imposed upon who were not able to discover the Cheat but afterward when the Doctrine had taken some root even those that could it being then very hard if not impossible satisfactorily to learn other Authors of the same times and of those immediately subsequent mentioning the same things how much or what is to be credited in such Writings especially if ancient For very frequently after the Piece has appear'd to be a Forgery the Matter of it has not been disbelieved even by Learned Men but kept its ground upon the Authority of other Writers who were but Copiers of that Condemn'd Original We have an Example of this in the very Case of the B. Virgin and her Mother who continue still to have those Worships and Invocations made to them whose probable Foundation is rejected even by the stiffest Asserters of their Prerogatives for there being so very little said of the One and nothing at all of the Other in the received Gospels our great Enemy toward the accomplishment of his forementioned Design was not negligent to supply that seeming Defect And how could this be better done than under the Name of S. James the Cousin or Brother of our Lord who being of the same Family can't but be supposed well acquainted with what he relates This seems to be the main Original for super-inducing such a Devotion and the whole Fabrick of the Marian Religion appears to lean upon no better Support But notwithstanding the Discovery of the Forgery Gregory the 13th thought fit by his (a) A. 1584. Breve to give S. Ann a Festival on the 26th of July and Sixtus 5. Reforming the Breviary appointed an Order to it which was the occasion of the Establishment of the Maids of S. Joseph who upon the keeping this Day formed themselves into a Family taking S. Ann for their Patroness and were afterwards confirmed and taken into the Protection of the late Queen-Mother of France Ann of Austria So that in this Age the Mother of the Blessed Virgin is drawn out of Silence by a Festival of the Church and the next Age may find perhaps another Festival even for Her Mother I cannot find so much as the Names of Joachim and Ann before Epiphanius who indeed (b) Haeres 78. p. 1049. Ed. Paris 1622. mentions them and no more nor is his Authority considerable enough to establish any thing S. Austin (c) Contra Faustum l. 23. To. 6. p. 98. Paris 1555. writing against Faustus doth not seem satisfied even as to this and gives the same Reason that a Protestant would which is its Uncanonicalness Quia Canonicum non est non me constringit saith the Father The (d) De Nativitate Virginis To. 9. par 3. Epistle to Chromatius concerning the Nativity of the Virgin which is at the end of S. Hierom's Works is no less than that other of the same stamp concerning her (a) De Assumptione B. V. Assumption spurious and is so condemned by Baronius having been so first by Erasmus and since by all generally except Chr. a Castro Yet this and the Prot-evangelium are the incomparable Pieces that have had so many Copiers It is not easie to determine of what Antiquity the Forgery is but how great soever that be there appear no Signs but such as are very late of its being much credited Germanus Hippolytus and Damascene say a little but the Story is very naked till (e) Lib. 1. c. 7. Nicephorus that lying Monk dresses it and even that is very short The counterfeit S. Hierom tells a long Tale with such a grace as to make it doubtful who deserves the Bell he or the counterfeit S. James they look like two such inimitable Originals as one can't be thought to Copy from the other Tho Pseudo-Hieronymus is so ingenuous as to tell us he is beholding to Seleucus for this fine Legend and this gives us some hint how this came to be Minted First we have the Letter of Chromatius and Heliodorus to S. Hierom pretending that Armonius and Virinus had told them that S. Hierom had an Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew wherein the Infancy of the V. Mary and our Saviour were written which they desire him to turn into Latin To this the False Hierom answers excusing the difficulty of the Work for that the Apostle design'd not to have it published that therefore he had sealed it up in the Hebrew and not added it to his Common Gospel to the end it might be secret but delivered it to be kept by some choice Religious Men who would not suffer it to be Translated but only gave some Relations that it contained till Seleucus first publish'd it wherein tho he spake Truth as to the History and Miracles yet added many Falshoods as to the Doctrines and therefore he promises to make a verbal and exact Translation from the Hebrew But the Forgery is so ill spun and the Blunders so gross as to give as good a Character of the Author's Talents as of his Veracity The Author probably was Seleucus the Manichaean or Leucius as J. Casaubon reads in some Manuscripts the first Syllable being left out and 't is for this Reason that S. Austin disputing against Faustus the Manichee * Si illius Apocryphae Scripturae ubi Joachim Pater Mariae legitur detinerer L. 23. rejects such Apocryphal Writings perhaps the very same and elsewhere condemns this Leucius But he can be condemn'd by none more severely than by a Pope Gelasius who calls him a Disciple of the Devil and says all his Books are Apocryphal which reflects a little odly on that other Pope who not only received this Forgery but founded a Day and Office upon the shameless Fable of this Heretick But because Pseudo-Jacobus writes with greater Authority and would intrude his stuff for Scripture it may not be amiss or undiverting to see what is so Authoritatively deliver'd with the Apostolical Benediction at the end He begins the Story telling us of one Joachim who is said to be very Rich and Charitable and to give double Offerings to God of his Estate Now we are told that when the great Feast of the Lord drew near the People of Israel brought all their Offerings amongst whom was Joachim none of the least eminent and Reuben stood up against him and said It is not lawful for you to offer yours because you have not made Seed in Israel Vpon which