Ok questionable authorship and containing information inconsistent with Catholic teaching.
These are reasons it was not placed in the canon.
Code:
Not worthy to be deemed Scripture-yet worthy for some of it to be Tradition,
No, dear brother, you have it backwards. The protoevangelium as a literary work is not considered to be Sacred Tradition. In makes reference to the Sacred Tradition.
The Truth about God can be found in many places, for example, Paul quotes some Pagan literary works in his epistles. He confirms that these ideas are Truth, not necessarily the literature in which they are found.
Code:
but Tradition is supposed to have equal footing with Scripture?
Yes. Both are forms of the Word of God.
Yes did any of the church Fathers even if written 50-90 years later then the Gospels that were included in canon reference the Protoevangelium of Joseph?
I am not familiar with any such work, so I can’t say.
If you mean to reference the Protoevangelium of James, it is thought to have been written early in the second century, after all four Gospels were written, so no, it would not have been used as source material for the Gospels. It reflects the thinking of the early second century.
Code:
I ask because if you are using part of the Protoevangelium of Joseph for tradition how do you know what part is truth and what part is just legend?
No, we do not use any part of non-canonical works "for tradition’. Sacred Tradition stands outside and above all these written works (because Sacred Tradition is the Word of God). What we see in some of the non-canonical writings are references to the Sacred Tradtition.
We know what part is Truth because the Truth is preserved infallibly by the HS in the Church.
We observe in pious legends early stories that complement the Divine Deposit of Faith made once for all to the saints.
Code:
Rev. Msgr. George W. Shea
marymediatrix-resourceonline.com/library/files/scholastic/mag_pevang.htm
15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
I can easily see Mary and Jesus in this verse but
I don’t get the leap from – I will put enmity between the serpant and Mary and between the serpant’s seed and Jesus, Jesus will bruise the serpent head and the serpent will bruise Jesus’ heel- to immaculate conception:
I can see why you would not get the leap. For us, it is not a “leap”, since we already see Mary as “all Holy”, we understand “enmity” to be complete separation and opposition from one another. There can be no part of evil or stain in that which is at total enmity with the devil.
In his Encyclical Ubi primum, Feb. 2, 1849, which directed the bishops of the universal Church to inform him what was the belief of their clergy and faithful and what their own belief concerning the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius IX stated that Mary "crushed the head of the ancient serpent with her virtuous foot."78
*In the first place, the foundation of this doctrine [the Immaculate Conception] is to be found in Sacred Scripture, in which God, Creator of all things, after ‘the sad fall of Adam speaks to the serpent, the tempter and corrupter, in these words, which not a few Fathers, Doctors of the Church and very many approved interpreters refer to ‘the Virgin Mother of God: ‘I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed . . .‘ (Gen. 3, 15). Now, if at any time the Blessed Virgin Mary had been, because contaminated in her conception by the hereditary stain of sin, destitute of divine grace, for that moment at least, however brief, there would not have come between her and the serpent that perpetual enmity spoken of from earliest ‘tradition’ down to the time of the solemn definition of the Virgin’s Immaculate Conception, but rather a certain subjection.109 *
It is like a hint, just as the greeting of the angel is a hint. When the angel greets Mary as “Full of Grace” (a title, and not by her name) we understand this to mean that there is no room for sin in her. She is completely at enmity with sin, because she is at enmity with the author of sin.
You can see in these examples that Sacred Tradition is a world view, a perspective, and informs how we understand what is written. In the NT, Sacred Tradition is called “the Way”.
