The similar Gospel of James had been condemned in Western Christianity by Jerome due to its reference to Jesus having brothers; seemingly in an attempt to avoid a similar condemnation, the prologue was added wherein an authority no less than Jerome himself translates the work from Matthew and approves of it.
[3] The narrative is prefaced by a series of letters between the early Church father Jerome and the Bishops Comatius and Heliodorus.
In these letters the Bishops request that Jerome translate a "Hebrew volume, written by the hand of the most blessed Evangelist Matthew," concerning the birth of the virgin mother and the infancy of Jesus.
One of the consequences of this is the creation of derivative works, such as the Libellus de Nativitate Sanctae Mariae, which consists of just the early part of the text concerning the birth of Mary.
[9] It is speculated that this work had a large influence on the earlier Islamic scripture, the Quran, particularly Surah 19 from where the story of Jesus' birth at the foot of a palm tree is referenced.