INTRODUCTION.

this wonderful controversy in Jerusalem, and indeed this account of the Virgin's death, which must have taken place before St Paul had well begun his ministry¹, is not included in the Acts of the Apostles. In the story of our Lord's birth no mention is made of the inn at Bethlehem, and the event happened in a desert place, in an uninhabited cave on the road side, and not in the actual town of David, there being no mention whatever of the inn (page 120). Mary's habit of weeping at the grave and at Golgotha (pp. 19, 27) would lead us to infer that she had never shared in the joy of the disciples who had been eye-witnesses of the Ascension; and is altogether out of harmony with the triumphant notes of her own Magnificat. Probably the author never intended the story to be considered anything more than a pious romance; and he would be intensely amazed if he could know the part which it has played in the great drama of human belief and conduct.

In the translation I have followed that of Professor Wright in his Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the New Testament, and his Departure of My Lady Mary in the Journal of Sacred Literature for January and April 1865, so far as his Syriac text agrees with mine. The portions taken from Cod. Harris are printed in smaller type.

Leaves from two ancient MSS. of the Corân.

From the time that I obtained possession of this palimpsest, I was perfectly aware that at least four of its quires contained an Arabic under script. Several times I tried to identify this without success. I had a natural reluctance to take an old manuscript to pieces by cutting out the cord which held its several quires together; but without doing so I could not even see the inner margins, and there alone were lines of the ancient Arabic script to be found, perfectly free from the upper writing. Add to this the fact that the script was in Kufic, without diacritical points, and that I was trying to find a Christian text, and the reasons of my want of success are at once apparent.

I was just about to place these leaves in hands more skilful than my own; and for this purpose, on June 21st of this year², I was taking a second

¹ See Gal. i. 18.

² 1901.