The Ascension of Isaiah preserves what might be a cognate but independent tale about Jesus' birth. This book was initially pre-Christian and was known to the author of Hebrews (cf. Hebrews 11:37 = AscenIs 5:2-15), but was heavily interpolated in the first and second century A.D. The first interpolation, 3:13-4:22, most likely dates to the end of the first century (as it was known to second-century writers in its literary form) but the second, the so-called Vision of Isaiah (11:2-22) is later, probably from the first half of the second century. It would thus be later than the birth narratives in the canonical gospels but contemporaneous with the Protevangelium of James which relates a similar but different story.
The birth legend in AscenIs is as follows:
And I indeed saw a woman of the family of David the prophet, named Mary, and virgin, and she was espoused to a man named Joseph, a carpenter, and he also was of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem Judah. And he came into his lot. And when she was espoused, she was found with child, and Joseph the carpenter was desirous to put her away. But the angel of the Spirit appeared in this world, and after that Joseph did not put her away, but kept Mary and did not reveal this matter to any one. And he did not approach May, but kept her as a holy virgin, though with child. And he did not live with her for two months. And after two months of days while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone. It came to pass that when they were alone that Mary right away looked with her eyes and saw a small babe, and she was astonished. And after she had been astonished, her womb was found as formerly before she had conceived. And when her husband Joseph said to her: "What has astonished you?" his eyes were opened and he saw the infant and praised God, because into his portion God had come. And a voice came to them: "Tell this vision to no one." And the story regarding the infant was noised throughout Bethlehem. Some said: "The virgin Mary has borne a child, before she was married two months." And many said: "She has not borne a child, nor has a midwife gone up to her, nor have we heard the cries of labor pains." And they were all blinded respecting him and what they all knew regarding him, though they knew not who he was. And they took him, and went to Nazareth in Galilee. (AscenIs 11:2-15)
One striking feature of this story is the almost magical appearance of the baby Jesus outside Mary's womb without any delivery or labor pains, allegedly without a midwife as well. In the Protevangelium version of the story, Mary delivers the child with the help of a midwife in a cave (not Joseph's house) but the bright blinding light of Jesus' glory obscures the otherwise unpleasant nature of Mary's giving birth (the motif of the bright light possibly inspired by Isaiah 9:2). Here there is no mention of a blinding light, nor a visit by shepherds or wise men, or Herod's slaughter of babies in Bethlehem.
In fact, what happens in Bethlehem afterwards is quite different: there is a controversy among the people over what exactly happened. The mention of this controversy is the writer's attempt to fulfill a prophecy in scripture (similar to the "prophecies" fulfilled in the canonical birth stories). But it is not a prophecy found in our present Bible, but in the book that Josephus (Antiquities 10.5.1) called "the second book of Ezekiel" and what Epiphanius (Adversus Haereses 64.70.5-17) called "the apocryphon of Ezekiel". This book has been lost. But fragments survive, and in Fr. 3, preserved by Epiphanius (Panarion Haeresies 30.3.3), reads: "And again in another place he says, 'And the heifer gave birth and they said, "She has not given birth." ' " Tertullian (De carne Christi 23) also summarized the passage and referred it to Jesus' birth: "We read also in the writings of Ezekiel concerning the cow which has given birth and has not given birth." This same passage was again quoted by Gregory of Nyssa, Clement of Alexandria, and in the Acts of Peter. This prophecy from the Apocryphon of Ezekiel was likely known to the second-century author of the "Vision of Isaiah," who regarded it fulfilled by the story of the rumor of Mary's maternity spreading throughout Bethlehem and some affirming and some denying the story.
Although nothing else from the ApEzekiel prophecy of the pregnant heifer survives, the characterization of the Messiah's mother as a heifer probably finds its inspiration in 1 Enoch 90:37-38:
Then I saw that a snow-white cow was born, with huge horns; all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky feared him and made petition to him all the time. I went on seeing until all their kindred were transformed, and became snow-white cows; and the first among them became a great beast with huge black horns on its head. The Lord of the sheep rejoiced over it and over all the cows. (1 Enoch 90:37-38)
Here Enoch symbolically represents the coming of a Messiah by the birth of a white bull. ApEzekiel apparently has taken over this motif and assumed that Enoch's white bull was born of a heifer. Then this motif of the heifer bearing the Messiah was used by the early Church fathers (such as Tertullian, Epiphanius, Clement of Alexandria, and Gregory of Nyssa) in their debates on Mary's virginity, while it was independently used by the interpolator of AscenIs to construct a story about a controversy in Bethlehem over Jesus' birth.
This is another interesting example of the complexities in the early traditions and stories about Jesus.
Leolaia