128 Jesus, Prophet of Islam
Of course, short of having access to an authentic and voluntary
confession by Fra Marino, it would be impossible to 'prove' such a
thesis, sorne four centuries after the alleged event, even 'on the
balance of probabilities', and let alone 'beyond any reasonable
doubt', - as David Sox in a roundabout way himself accepts, when
he adroits that 'the reader is faced with a great amount of specula
tion' in his book. However he nevertheless attempts the impossi
ble, perhaps in the hope that, by at least raising this possibility and
making it seem plausible, any version of the Gospel ofBarnabas might
as a result be sufficiently discredited not to be taken too seriously
by anyone who happened to come across il.
We are accordingly presented with the fruits of David Sox' s la
borious searches through the official records for the period within
which the Italian manuscript was probably bound to see ifthere is
any mention of a Fra Marino who not only had the requisite tal
ents to be able to produce such an interesting 'forgery', but who
also would have had the necessary motive needed to sustain what
would have been such a demanding and, if he were to be found
out by the Inquisition, such a dangerous, task.
David Sox was only able to come up with one possible candi
date: a former Inquisitor of Venice -who probably would have
been more likely to have burnt the Gospel of Barnabas than written
it! -who according to the records was officially reprimanded on
two occasions for being too lenient with heretics, and who was
subsequently demoted from his position and replaced. From these
seant details, David Sox concludes that Fra Marino was not only
somehow driven to embrace Islam, but also must have decided to
forge the Italian version of the Gospel of Barnabas as an act of re
venge against his successor- although how such an act could have
aduallyadversely affected his successor (who probably would have
been delighted to burn the offending 'forgery' had he ever come
across it) is never clarified.
This scenario is extremely tenuous, to say the least, especially
when in fact the Italian manuscript receives hardly any publicity
whatsoever for the next four hundred years -and not until the
English version of it begins to be widely circulated sorne seventy
years after the Italian version has been translated into English by
Canon Lonsdale and Laura Ragg!
Unfortunately for David Sox there are no contemporary records
which depict the successor of an ex-Inquisitor (who happens to be
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