007. Chapter 5 - The Apocryphal Gospels
Chapter 5 - The Apocryphal Gospels A second source of the life of Christ, Christian and extra-Biblical, is the Apocryphal or Spurious Gospels. These, like the pictures of the catacombs, emanate from the common people and represent the ideas afloat among the masses. The word “apocryphal” meant originally “hidden.” These were hidden Gospels in the sense that their origin and authorship were unknown. But “apocryphal” came to mean “false,” expressive of the rejection by the church of these “Gospels,” which are so full of legendary material. Many scholars attempt to divide these Gospels into “The Uncanonical or Discarded Gospels” and the “Rejected or Apocryphal Gospels.” They agree that the latter have practically no value, and differ as to the value attaching to the former.
Gospel According to the Hebrews The most important of the “Uncanonical Gospels” is the “Gospel According to the Hebrews.” Papias (a.d. 60?-140?) says that Matthew composed his Gospel in the Hebrew dialect. Some identify the “Gospel According to the Hebrews” with the Hebrew edition of Matthew’s Gospel. Resch holds it was compiled from Matthew, and has, therefore, but little independent value. Harnack thinks it was composed independently about the same time as John’s Gospel. Moffatt calls it “one of the problems and enigmas of early Christian literature.” Needless to say, we possess no copy of this “Gospel According to the Hebrews.” It is known to us only through quotation by early Christian writers from the second century on. The most interesting quotations from the “Gospel According to the Hebrews” follow. They are so evidently at variance with the New Testament records that comment as to their legendary character is hardly necessary in this brief sketch:
“Behold, the Lord’s mother and brothers said to him, ‘John the Baptist is baptizing for the remission of sins: let us go and be baptized by him.’ But he said to them, ‘What sin have I done that I should go and be baptized by him unless, perhaps, what I have now said is ignorance?’
“It came to pass when the Lord had ascended out of the water, the whole fountain of the Holy Spirit came down and rested upon him, and said to him, ‘My Son, in all the prophets I was looking for thee, that thou shouldst come, and that I should rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thou art my first-born Son, who reignest to eternity.”
“The Holy Spirit, my mother, took me just now by one of my hairs, and carried me away to the great Mount Tabor.” (Evidently referring to the temptation.) The man with the withered hand says to Jesus (cf. Mark 3:1-6): “I was a builder seeking my living with my hands; I pray thee, Jesus, restore to me my health, that I may not basely beg my bread.” The following description is given of the appearance of the risen Christ to James: “The Lord, after handing over the linen cloth to the servant of the high priest, went to James and appeared to him; for James had sworn he would eat no bread from the hour at which the Lord had drunk the cup till he should see him rising again from those who are asleep. Bring, the Lord says, a table and bread….He took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from those that are asleep.”
Other False Gospels
Another of the Apocryphal Gospels is the “Gospel According to the Egyptians,” of which we have a few unimportant quotations. It is cited by three writers. The Gnostics — one of the heretical sects of the early centuries — used this Gospel. It was probably written by them or taken up and colored by their heretical views. Recently in a tomb of a monk in Upper Egypt a fragment of the “Gospel of Peter” was discovered. The fragment begins with the trial of Jesus where Pilate is washing his hands, and closes with the Galilean scene of Peter going fishing. It also is heretical in color, and written up from the four Gospels sometime in the second century. Early Christian writers also make references to other Apocryphal Gospels — The Gospel of the Twelve, The Gospel of Bartholomew, The Gospel of Andrew, The Gospel of Barnabas, and others of which we know but little. Their Foolish Inventions
Besides the above there is a group of Apocryphal Gospels, fanciful and utterly untrustworthy, which attempt to fill in the spaces in the life of Christ such as the period of His youth at Nazareth. These can be read in the ante-Nicene fathers in any first-class public library. As examples maybe cited the “Protevangelium of James,” a history of Mary from her birth to the flight into Egypt; the “Passing of Mary,” a story of the death and assumption of Mary; the “Gospel of Nicodemus,” an account in two parts — the “Acts of Pilate,” which is an elaboration of the trial of Jesus, and the “Descent into Hades,” which relates the scenes enacted when Jesus “preached to the spirits in prison.” The earliest of these productions date from the second century. They are the products of the romantic and misguided imagination of certain circles of early Christians. Jesus is represented as a miracle worker in His boyhood, performing the most monstrous things at play, even striking children dead that displeased Him. A most ridiculous group of legends is told about Mary. Hill says in his Introduction to the Life of Christ (p. 24): “When it is said that what the New Testament tells us about Jesus is mainly the invention of later days, we have only to turn to these rejected Gospels if we would know what the invention of later days would produce….If such things are what Christians of the second century would invent, when they tried their imagination upon the life of Christ, we may rest assured that the story told in the four Gospels is not of their invention.” These Apocryphal Gospels are of great importance, however, in understanding the development of Christian art which is based so largely upon them, and also the development of the worship of Mary and various other teachings in the Roman Catholic Church.