Note 1675 — Chapter XVI · THE CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA
Reading edition
Tischendorf (1876), p. xlviii. As I have already intimated on other occasions, it seems to me no explanation to call such stories “oriental.” Christianity was an oriental religion to begin with. Moreover, as our whole investigation goes to show, both classical antiquity and the medieval west were ready enough both to repeat and to invent similar tales.