New Testament apocrypha

The word "apocrypha" means "things put away" or "things hidden," originating from the Medieval Latin adjective apocryphus, "secret" or "non-canonical," which in turn originated from the Greek adjective ἀπόκρυφος (apokryphos), "obscure," from the verb ἀποκρύπτειν (apokryptein), "to hide away."[4] From the Greek prefix "apo" which means "away" and the Greek verb "kryptein" which means "to hide".[5] The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the church as useful, but not divinely inspired. As such, to refer to Gnostic writings as "apocryphal" is misleading since they would not be classified in the same category by orthodox believers. Often used by the Greek Fathers was the term antilegomena, or "spoken against", although some canonical books were also spoken against, such as the Apocalypse of John in the East. Often used by scholars is the term pseudepigrapha, or "falsely inscribed" or "falsely attributed", in the sense that the writings were written by an anonymous author who appended the name of an apostle to his work, such as in the Gospel of Peter or The Æthiopic Apocalypse of Enoch: almost all books, in both Old and New Testaments, called "apocrypha" in the Protestant tradition are pseudepigrapha. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, what are called the apocrypha by Protestants include the deuterocanonical books: in the Catholic tradition, the term "apocrypha" is synonymous with what Protestants would call the pseudepigrapha, the latter term of which is almost exclusively used by scholars.[6]

In the modern era, many Gnostic texts have been uncovered, especially from the Nag Hammadi library. Some texts take the form of an expounding of the esoteric cosmology and ethics held by the Gnostics. Often this was in the form of dialogue in which Jesus expounds esoteric knowledge while his disciples raise questions concerning it. There is also a text, known as the Epistula Apostolorum, which is a polemic against Gnostic esoterica, but written in a similar style as the Gnostic texts.

Several texts concern themselves with the subsequent lives of the apostles, usually with highly supernatural events. Almost half of these, anciently called The Circuits of the Apostles and now known by the name of their purported author, "Leucius Charinus" (supposedly a companion of John the apostle), contained the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul. These were judged by the Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople in the ninth century to be full of folly, self-contradiction, falsehood, and impiety. The Acts of Thomas and the Acts of Peter and the Twelve are often considered Gnostic texts. While most of the texts are believed to have been written in the 2nd century, at least two, the Acts of Barnabas and the Acts of Peter and Paul are believed to have been written as late as the 5th century.

• Acts of Andrew
• Acts of Barnabas
• Acts of John
• Acts of Mar Mari
• Acts of the Martyrs
• Acts of Paul
• Acts of Paul and Thecla
• Acts of Peter
• Acts of Peter and Andrew
• Acts of Peter and Paul
• Acts of Peter and the Twelve
• Acts of Philip
• Acts of Pilate
• Acts of Thomas
• Acts of Timothy
• Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca

There are also non-canonical epistles (or "letters") between individuals or to Christians in general. Some of them were regarded very highly by the early church. Those marked with a lozenge (♦) are included in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers:

• Epistle of Barnabas ♦
• Epistles of Clement ♦
• Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul
• Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans ♦
• Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians ♦
• Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians ♦
• Epistle to Diognetus ♦
• Epistle to the Laodiceans (an epistle in the name of Paul)
• Epistle to Seneca the Younger (an epistle in the name of Paul)
• Third Epistle to the Corinthians - accepted in the past by some in the Armenian Orthodox church.

Several works frame themselves as visions, often discussing the future, afterlife, or both:

• Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, also called Apocalypse of the Virgin.)
• Apocalypse of Peter (distinct from the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter)
• Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
• Apocalypse of Thomas (also called the Revelation of Thomas)
• Apocalypse of Stephen (also called the Revelation of Stephen)
• First Apocalypse of James (also called the First Revelation of James)
• Second Apocalypse of James (also called the Second Revelation of James)
• The Shepherd of Hermas (also included in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers)

Several texts (over 50) consist of descriptions of the events surrounding the varied fate of Mary (the mother of Jesus):

• The Home Going of Mary
• The Falling Asleep of the Mother of God
• The Descent of Mary

These texts, due to their content or form, do not fit into the other categories:

• Apostolic Constitutions (church regulations supposedly asserted by the apostles)
• Book of Nepos
• Canons of the Apostles
• Cave of Treasures (also called The Treasure)
• Clementine literature
• Didache (possibly the first written catechism) (also included in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers.)
• Liturgy of St James
• Penitence of Origen
• Prayer of Paul
• Sentences of Sextus
• Physiologus
• Book of the Bee

In addition to the known apocryphal works, there are also small fragments of texts, parts of unknown (or uncertain) works. Some of the more significant fragments are:

• The Gospel of the Saviour
• The Naassene Fragment
• The Fayyum Fragment
• The Secret Gospel of Mark, whose authenticity has been challenged
• The Oxyrhynchus Gospels
• The Egerton Gospel

Several texts are mentioned in many ancient sources and would probably be considered part of the apocrypha, but no known text has survived:

• Gospel of Eve (a quotation from this gospel is given by Epiphanius (Haer. xxvi. 2, 3). It is possible that this is the Gospel of Perfection he alludes to in xxvi. 2. The quotation shows that this gospel was the expression of complete pantheism)
• Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms
• Gospel of Matthias (probably different from the Gospel of Matthew)
• Gospel of Perfection (used by the followers of Basilides and other Gnostics. See Epiphanius, Haer. xxvi. 2)
• Gospel of the Seventy
• Gospel of Thaddaeus (this may be a synonym for the Gospel of Judas, confusing Judas Iscariot for Jude the Apostle)
• Gospel of the Twelve
• Memoria Apostolorum

While many of the books listed here were considered heretical (especially those belonging to the gnostic tradition—as this sect was considered heretical by Proto-orthodox Christianity of the early centuries), others were not considered particularly heretical in content, but in fact were well accepted as significant spiritual works. Those marked with a lozenge (♦) are also included in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers.

While some of the following works appear in complete Bibles from the fourth century, such as 1 Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas, showing their general popularity, they were not included when the canon was formally decided at the end of that century.

• 1 and 2 Clement ♦
• Shepherd of Hermas ♦
• Didache ♦
• Epistle of Barnabas ♦
• Apocalypse of Peter
• Third Epistle to the Corinthians

Among historians of early Christianity the books are considered invaluable, especially those that almost made it into the final canon, such as Shepherd of Hermas. Bart Ehrman, for example, said:

The victors in the struggles to establish Christian Orthodoxy not only won their theological battles, they also rewrote the history of the conflict; later readers then naturally assumed that the victorious views had been embraced by the vast majority of Christians from the very beginning ... The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history ... the debate lasted three hundred years ... even within "orthodox" circles there was considerable debate concerning which books to include.[18]

This debate primarily concerned whether certain works should be read in the church service or only privately. These works were widely used but not necessarily considered Catholic or 'universal.' Such works include the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, and to a lesser extent the Apocalypse of Peter. Considering the generally accepted dates of authorship for all of the canonical New Testament works (ca. 100 CE), as well as the various witnesses to canonicity extant among the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, etc., the four gospels and letters of Paul were held by the gentile Christian community as scriptural, and 200 years were needed to finalize the canon; from the beginning of the 2nd Century to the mid-4th Century, no book in the final canon was ever declared spurious or heretical, except for the Revelation of John which the Council of Laodicea in 363–364 CE rejected (although it accepted all of the other 26 books in the New Testament). This was possibly due to fears of the influence of Montanism which used the book extensively to support their theology. See Revelation of John for more details. Athanasius wrote his Easter letter in 367 CE which defined a canon of 27 books, identical to the current canon, but also listed two works that were "not in the canon but to be read:" The Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache. Nevertheless, the early church leaders in the 3rd and 4th Centuries generally distinguished between canonical works and those that were not canonical but 'useful,' or 'good for teaching,' though never relegating any of the final 27 books to the latter category. One aim with establishing the canon was to capture only those works which were held to have been written by the Apostles, or their close associates, and as the Muratorian fragment canon (ca. 150–175 CE) states concerning the Shepherd of Hermas:

...But Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after their time.[19]

• Michel, Charles; Peeters, Paul (1924) [1911]. Évangiles Apocryphes (in French) (2nd ed.). Paris: A. Picard.
• James, Montague Rhodes (1953) [1924]. The Apocryphal New Testament (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• González-Blanco, Edmundo, ed. (1934). Los Evangelio Apócrifos (in Spanish). 3 vols. Madrid: Bergua.
• Bonaccorsi, Giuseppe, ed. (1948). Vangeli apocrifi (in Italian). Florence: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina.
• Aurelio de Santos Otero, ed. (1956). Los Evangelios Apócrifos: Colección de textos griegos y latinos, versión crítica, estudios introductorios y comentarios (in Spanish). Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Christianos.
• Kekeliże, Korneli, ed. (1959). Kartuli versiebi aṗoḳripebis mocikulta šesaxeb [Georgian Versions of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles]. Tbilisi: Sakartvelos SSR mecnierebata akademiis gamomcemloba.
• Moraldi, Luigi, ed. (1994) [1971]. Apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento (in Italian). Translated by Moraldi, Luigi (2nd ed.). Turin: Unione tipografico-editrice torinese.
• Robinson, James M. (1977). The Nag Hammadi Library in English. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
• Erbetta, Mario, ed. (1966–1981). Gli Apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento (in Italian). 3 vols. Translated by Erbetta, Mario. Turin: Marietti.
• Aurelio de Santos Otero (1978–1981). Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der altslavischen Apokryphen (in German). 2 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter.
• Herbert, Máire; McNamara, Martin (1989). Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
• Elliott, J. K. (1993). Apocryphal New Testament.
• Bovon, François; Geoltrain, Pierre; Kaestli, Jean-Daniel, eds. (1997–2005). Écrits apocryphes chrétiens (in French). Paris: Gallimard.
• Ehrman, Bart D.; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Markschies, Christoph; Schröter, Jens, eds. (2012). Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (in German). Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck.
• Burke, Tony; Landau, Brent, eds. (2016). New Testament apocrypha: More noncanonical scriptures. 1. Grand Rapids. MI: Eerdmans.

• Apostolic Fathers
• Authorship of the Pauline epistles
• Biblical canon
• Books of the Bible
• List of early Christian writers
• History of Christianity
• Historicity of Jesus
• Nag Hammadi library
• The Q document, a hypothetical document underlying much of the text of the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke
• Textual criticism

• Cameron, Ron (1982). The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts. Westminster/John Knox. ISBN 978-0-664-24428-6.
• Ehrman, Bart D.; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). "The Jewish Christian Gospels". The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press. pp. 197–216. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4. 216.
• Elliott, James Keith (2005) [1993]. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826181-0.
• Schlarb, Egbert; Lührmann, Dieter (2000). "Hebräerevangelium". Fragmente apokryph gewordener Evangelien in griechischer und lateinischer Sprache (in German). N.G. Elwert Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7708-1144-1. OL 6868179M.
• Vielhauer, Philipp; Strecker, Georg (1991). Schneemelcher, Wilhelm; Wilson, Robert McLachlan (eds.). New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and Related Writings Volume 1 (2 ed.). John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-22721-X. (6th German edition, translated by George Ogg)
• Yamauchi, Edwin M. (1979). "Apocryphal Gospels". In Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (ed.). International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: A–D Volume 1. Wm. B. Eerdmans. pp. 181–88. ISBN 978-0-8028-3781-3.

• New Testament Apocrypha texts
• New Testament Apocrypha resources
• New Testament Apocrypha histories
• New Testament Apocrypha - Tabulation includes Gnostic Gospels (23) and Gnostic Acts (29), linked to English translations.
• The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas public domain audiobook at LibriVox