New Testament Apocrypha
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[edit] Definition
The New Testament Apocrypha are those works allegedly by or about apostles which, being deemed spurious, have not found their way into the Bible.
[edit] History
For the purposes of this article, we have restricted ourselves to those documents known in the first few centuries after Christ, and which therefore might have been genuine and which would have come under the scrutiny of those charged with determining the Canon of the New Testament.
Of course, if the precise history of these documents was known, they would not be "apocrypha": it is just because their history is not known that they are given this doubtful status.
[edit] Discussion
In their day, the New Testament apocrypha were condemned by the orthodox as forgeries:
- “There have been some vain individuals, who, with a presumption that betrays the grossest folly, have forged a Revelation of Paul, crammed with all manner of fables, which has been rejected by the Orthodox Church" (St Augustine, Tractate 98)
A non-Christian might well raise an eyebrow at any scripture being rejected on the grounds that it is "crammed full of all manner of fables", and clearly it is not the unlikelihood of the content which led to the rejection of the apocrypha by the orthodox. Rather, it was their unorthodoxy. The Gospel of Peter, for example, is condemned to this day by the Catholic Church for Docetism (that is, the belief that Jesus did not really have a physical body, and therefore did not really suffer on the cross). The only hint of this is the statement:
- "And they brought two malefactors, and crucified the Lord between them. But he kept silence, as one feeling no pain." (Gospel of Peter, 4:10-11 [1])
Now this is not Docetism. Similar statements have been made about dozens of Christian martyrs without implying doubt over their humanity or capacity for pain. Yet it might serve as a proof-text for Docetists, bringing them aid and comfort. Hence, the Bible has no Gospel According To Peter.
- "We, brethren, receive Peter and the other Apostles even as Christ; but the writings that go falsely by their names we, in our experience, reject, knowing that such things as these we never received." (Serapion, Bishop of Antioch 190–203, writing to the Church at Rhossus)
A couple of points need to be made here. The first is that the orthodox are using orthodoxy as a criterion for authenticity. A Gospel is held to be true if it fits in with Pauline theology, and rejected if it doesn't. This relies on the proposition that the apostles always got their theology absolutely right: in the case above, we must believe that Peter, who, according to the Bible, betrayed Christ three times, would never write anything that even sounded a little bit Docetist.
The second point that needs to be raised is that the reasoning applied is entirely circular. The authenticity of supposed apostolic texts is to be checked against the orthodoxy of the Church --- but where does the orthodoxy of the Church come from? Why, from authentic apostolic texts, of course. If we begin by assuming the Pauline Epistles to be the Word of God, then we can use this as a criterion to exclude other texts. If, on the other hand, we start off by assuming with Marcion that the Gnostic Scriptures are correct, then we discover instead that the Epistles of Paul are heretical and spurious.
Of the New Testament apocrypha, the one that got closest to inclusion in the New Testament is the Apocalypse of Peter [2]. It is listed in the earliest known Canon of the New Testament, the second century Muratorian Canon, and is listed in the third century Catalogus Claromontanus. It remained in liturgical use until at least the fifth century. Yet for some reason it didn't make it into the Bible.
Other early apocrypha (excluding those which are clearly Gnostic Scriptures, which have their own article) include Acts of Andrew, Thomas, Peter, Philip, Barnabas, Thaddaeus, Paul, and John; revelations ("Apocalypses") of Peter, Paul, Stephen, Thomas, and John (a different John); Gospels of Matthias, Barnabas, James, Peter, Thomas, Bartholomaeus, and Nicodemus, together with an anonymous "Gospel of the Lord" of very early date; there is an Epistle of Paul to the Laodicians, an Epistle of the Apostles, an Apocryphon of James, and a correspondence between St Paul and Senecca. There is also a polite letter from Jesus to Abgarus the topharch of Edessa, declining Abgarus' invitation to visit his city. That Abgarus made such an invitation is stated in the Acts of Bartholomaeus; the letter was allegedly found in the Edessan state archives by the 2nd century Christian scholar and historian Eusebius, and the text is given in his Ecclesiastical History.
