INFANCY GOSPEL OF JAMES CHAPTER 1 - 6

THE INFANCY GOSPEL OF JAMES

If James was written Anno Domini
One fifty that is good enough for me
To take it with the swell of Matthew and
Of Mark and Luke along with ampersand
Of John, not to mention the other books
Apocryphal that swelter in the nooks
Of such a fateful century of crooks.
I have no trouble with virginity
Or with the idea of new Eve and tree.
And yet the thought that James the Just could not
Write such a thing without a Jewish plot
Does not convince. First century’s complex
With many views of government and sex
Both Jewish and Hellenic as well sought.

JAMES 1

1 In the record of the twelve tribes
Of Israel we read the scribes
Say there was one called Joachim,
Who being wealthy, it would seem,
Pledged double offerings to YHWH
Ælohim, saying “My substance
Shall be for all people’s advance,
So I’ll find from YHWH Ælohim
The mercy to forgive my scheme.”
2 But at a certain great feast of
YHWH, when Israel’s folk came with love
Gifts and Joachim also offered
His own, Reuben, High Priest preferred
Opposed him saying it was not
Lawful for any who begot
No children in Israel to bring
An offering to YHWH or to sing.
3 At this Joachim greatly perturbed
Went to consult and undisturbed
The records of the twelve tribes to
See whether he alone would do
Having no children or a few.
4 He found on his investigation
That all the righteous of the nation
Had raised up seed in Israel.
5 Then he remembered how it fell
On Abraham, near his life’s end
That Ælohim gave a godsend,
His son Isaac, upon which he
Was greatly distressed and would be
Not seen by his wife, 6 but retired
Into the wilderness, desired
To pitch his tent there and to fast
Forty days and forty nights past,
Saying 7 “I shall not go down hence
Nor eat nor drink for my defence
Until the Lord look on my case,
But prayer alone sustain my face.”

The forty days of fasting Enoch taught
To Moses, to which Joachim fell lot,
Bless my ways also, my Beloved, until
Divine wisdom gives birth in me Your will.
The ninth month of fasting is doubly blessed
With ten days from Muharrem as the rest.
No food or drink in daylight hours may pass
My lips as I seek by my prayers true mass
Before Your face, Beloved, in wilderness
Where only beast and bird come to caress
My timid heart with fear and love. The trees
Shed needles soft where I kneel under seas
Of green. Let me produce a righteous seed
Of divine wisdom, and so, Loved, take heed.

JAMES 2

1 During this time Anna his wife,
Doubly distressed upon her life
Said “I will mourn both widowhood
And barrenness that I’ve withstood.”
2 Then YHWH’s great feast drew near, and said
Judith her maid, “How long with dread
Will you afflict yourself? The feast
Of YHWH’s when all from great to least
Must not by law mourn, man nor beast.
3 “So take this hood well made by one
Craftsman in such, for it’s not done
That such as I, who am a maid,
Should wear the thing, while you evade,
Whose status is greater than mine.”
4 And Anna answered “Leave that line,
I’m not used to such things so fine,
Besides, YHWH’s humbled me and mine.
5 “I fear evil design in this
Come to spoil me with sin, not bliss.”
6 And Judith her maid answered, “What
Evil should I wish on you, but
You will not listen to my word?
7 “I cannot lay a curse preferred
Beyond what you are under now
In what Ælohim will allow
In shutting your womb, that you should
Not take in Israel motherhood.”
8 So Anna was greatly distressed
And in her wedding garment dressed
Went out to pace her garden way
Mid-afternoon that troubling day.
9 She saw a laurel tree and sat
Beneath it to pray YHWH for that,
And said 10 “O Ælohim of my
Fathers, bless me and hear my sigh
As You did once bless Sarah’s womb
And gave her Isaac, son and room.”

I kneel beneath the desert laura now
And beg of You that You will hear somehow
The voice of the lone soul who cries to You
That I might have child of the wisdom few
Find and fewer embrace, the grace divine
That costs more than the crown, the jewel and wine.
My soul meets sophia on the golden stair
That climbs the laura tower to find the bare
And blackened sky of night still holds a star
To guide to where the dawning gleams afar.
My soul meets sophia bent in humble task
And hidden by the veils that women ask,
And yet I apprehend Your love that shines
Unrecognized beyond religions’ wines.

JAMES 3

1 And as she looked toward the sky,
She saw a sparrow’s nest up high
In the laurel, 2 and mourning she
Said to herself then “Woe is me
And who sired me and who gave birth,
That I should be so little worth
In Israel’s folk, that they reproach
Deriding me and so encroach
On my God’s temple, woe is me,
There’s none like me so mournfully!
3 “Compared to even beast and bird,
In fruitfulness they are preferred
By You, O YHWH, and woe is me,
There’s none like me so mournfully!
4 “Compared to even beast and bird,
In fruitfulness they are preferred
By You, O YHWH, and woe is me,
There’s none like me so mournfully!
5 “Compared to waters of the ground
I cannot reach their fruitful sound
Before You, YHWH, and woe is me,
There’s none like me so mournfully!
6 “I’m not compared to the sea waves,
For they, though calm or moved with raves,
The very fish in them give praise,
Throughout their days and in their ways,
To You, O YHWH, and woe is me,
There’s none like me so mournfully!
7 “I’m not worthy of earth’s compare,
That sends up fruit to grace the air
With praises daily to Your name,
O YHWH, proclaiming still Your fame!”

Fruitful or no, the human soul aspires
To be compared to all created fires,
As though conformity were the best lift
Of heaven’s abode and the divinest gift.
Fruitful indeed, the human soul would be
Like bird and beast, like waters of the sea,
And like the laden boughs of apple tree,
Fruitful no matter what the weight and shift.
Beloved, the fire of blossom, stem and fruit
I have already caught in hand and boot.
I look now to the joy of being just,
And of just being on the earthly dust.
And as I come back to maternal root,
I come back also to the divine trust.

JAMES 4

1 And then the angel of YHWH stood
Beside her and said, “Anna, good
Anna, YHWH’s heard your prayer, you shall
Conceive and bring forth epical
Progeny whose fame shall be spoken
In all the world and go unbroken.
2 Anna said “As YHWH Ælohim
Lives, if I bear true not in dream
Either male or female, I will
Bring it for a gift to fulfil
My vow to YHWH Ælohim still,
And it shall minister to Him
Until its days of life grow dim.”
3 And behold there came messengers
Saying to her, “Behold Joachim
Your husband comes as it occurs
With his flocks, 4 for an angel stirs
From YHWH come out to say to him
‘Joachim, Joachim, YHWH Ælohim
Has heard your prayer. Get down from here,
For your wife Anna shall appear
And has conceived.’” 5 And Joachim sat
Down, called his herdsmen where he sat
And said, “Bring me ten lambs without
Blemish and without spot or doubt,
They shall be for YHWH Ælohim.
6 “And bring me twelve tender young calves,
And they shall be as it best seem
For the priests and not done by halves
For the assembly of elders;
7 “An hundred kids for all the fers.”
8 And so Joachim came with his flocks,
And Anna stood at the gate stocks
And saw Joachim coming, 9 and ran
And hung upon his neck full span,
Saying “Now know I that the Lord
God has greatly blessed me implored:
10 “For behold the widow’s no more
A widow, and the one who bore
No children shall conceive.” That way
At home Joachim rested a day.

Beloved, look on the faith of Anna now
And see her husband’s frank and happy brow.
No evidence of action did You give,
But only spoke the word that made them live.
My doubting heart would wait until the birth
Of Mary before I would shout Your worth.
But these among the fair and true combine
To praise You for the promise of the wine.
Beloved, make me like Anna born of old,
And like the sweet Joachim, who was so bold
To give a hundred sheep in thanks that You
Just whispered hope to him among the few.
Then I shall sing upon the desert sand,
Upon the tundra, on the frozen land.

JAMES 5

1 And the next day he offered gifts,
Said to himself, 2 “If Lord God lifts
His favour unto me, the plate
That’s on the priest’s forehead will state
It to me.” 3 Joachim offered gifts
And earnestly looked in his shifts
Upon the plate of the priest when
He went to the Lord’s altar then,
And he in himself did no sin.
4 And Joachim said “Now do I know
That the Lord to me’s come to show
His favour and forgives my sin.”
5 And justified he went down in
His house from the Lord’s temple thrilled.
6 And so her months were then fulfilled,
In the ninth month Anna gave birth.
To the midwife for all her worth
She said, “What have I got?” 7 And she
Answered “A female” 8 And so she
“This day my soul is magnified,”
She laid herself down on her side.
9 And when the days were all fulfilled,
Anna purified herself stilled,
And gave the child to suck and called
Her name Mary before she crawled.

The Jewish faith is patriarchal in
The eyes of those who stand around in sin,
Despite the fact the sacred trust runs down
From mother and to daughter on the town.
Whether a Jew or not, the most of men
Today as yesterday come back again
To hope for sons instead of daughters’ frown.
Such hopes are futile and a wicked wen.
But Anna is not such a soul, oh no.
She takes delight in even female glow.
I too have just a daughter, but the grace
Seemed well enough in every sort of place.
No son is needed where the daughter bides,
No son is heeded where the daughter glides.

JAMES 6

1 And day by day the child waxed strong,
And when she was six months along
Her mother stood her on the ground
To try and see if she would stand;
And she walked seven steps, she found,
And came back to her mother’s hand.
2 She caught her up, saying “As lives
The Lord my God, so my heart gives
You no more chance to walk on ground
Until I bring you to be found
Within the temple of the Lord.
3 She made a holy place adored
In her bed chamber, did not let
Common or unclean pass its net.
And she called for the daughters of
The Hebrews undefiled in love,
And they carried her to and fro.

The common and unclean are words of law,
Expressions of tradition in the craw
Of the Semitic sort of faith and paw.
So those who see no knowledge of the suite
In James’s gospel ought to come and eat
Their kippah and return the staff and meat.
I do not claim this word proves that the book
Was written in the first century and took
Its flaws and blessings from that day and stone.
I only point out that the guess alone
Is never to suffice upon the shore
Of human vice and wisdom out of door.
Beloved, it’s clear that love and knowledge reign
Upon these pages without sin or stain.

4 And the first year the child did grow,
And Joachim made a great feast and
Bade the priests and the scribes at hand
And the elders’ assembly and
The whole folk of Israel to stand.
5 And Joachim brought the child before
The priests, and they blessed her galore,
Saying “0ur fathers’ God, now bless
This child and give her name’s address
Renowned for ever among all
The generations to recall.”
And all the people said “So be,
So be it then. Amen.” 6 And he
Brought her to the high priests, and they
Blessed her, saying “O God whose sway
Is on high, look upon this child,
And bless her with the undefiled,
A blessing unsurpassed, full styled.”
7 And her mother caught her up in
The safety of her chamber’s gin
And gave her suck. And Anna made
A song to the Lord God, and said
8 “I’ll sing an hymn to Lord my God,
Because He visited with rod
And took away from me reproach
Of all my enemies in coach,
And the Lord’s given me a fruit
Of his righteousness and to boot,
Single and manifold to Him.
Who shall declare unto the grim
Sons of Reuben Anna gives suck?
Hearken, hearken you to the ruck,
Twelve Israel’s tribes, Anna gives suck.”
9 And she laid the child down to rest
In the bed chamber of her nest,
And went forth and served them the best.
10 And when the feast was ended, they
Went down rejoicing in the way,
And glorifying Israel’s God
For what He did upon the sod.

The woman was in luck to set the child
Down to sleep and then join the party wild
Without the bother to come in and change
A diaper to sing back to sleep with strange
And wonton melodies of greater range.
Most babies I know fail to sleep when they
Would best be out of parents’ help and way.
But Anna was in luck on that first day,
And had a gay time with the neighbours’ hay.
Beloved, the child of wisdom in my breast
Is also one to sleep before the nest.
I might need her to waken when the crowd
Comes pressing all around me speaking loud.
But rarely does Your wisdom touch my vest.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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