iii, VALUE.— The revival of interest in the apocryphal writings of the NT is due partly to the discovery of new documents, and partly to the attraction exerted upon the minds of many scholars by the fascinating and complex problem of the literary origin of the Gospels. Amongst the questions upon which light is sought are the following: Do these uncanonical Gospels impart any additional knowledge of the words and works of the Lord Jesus? In this respect it is generally agreed that their value is slight. Do they help to establish any theory of the origin of the Gospels? In this respect their value differs greatly: until more complete and more accurate texts of some of these Gospels are accessible it is impossible to ex- press any positive judgment in regard to their relation to the canonical Gospels. It may, how- ever, be said that the theory of a common oral tradition deserves more careful consideration than it has received from some modern critics, whose arguments are valid only on the assumption that priority to the canonical Gospels and direct depend- ence on them are the only possible alternatives.
The apocryphal Gospels contain information which is of considerable value to the student of the manners and customs of the Jews in early Christian times. It is true that their statements are sometimes in flagrant contradiction to history ; but it is, as a rule, not difficult to discover the dogmatic bias which led to a perversion of the facts. When no such motive is discernible, and the details given violate neither psychological nor historical probability, the writer’s source may be an authentic tradition. For example, the setting of some of the fabulous stories of our Lord’s child- hood has an interest for the antiquarian who regards the fantastic miracles as quite incredible. It is also probable that, in the near future, these Gospels will prove of even greater value to his- torians as they strive to disperse the gloom which still hangs over the first two centuries of the
| Christian era, —the period when heretical ten-
| nEn nn n n
422 APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS
dencies appeared within the Church, and heretical sects were formed outside it. In the controversy which has arisen on this question there has been on the one side a tendency to forget that in the 4th cent. opinions might be regarded as heterodox which were not so regarded in the 2nd cent. ; but on the other side there has been a tendency to claim the sanction of the early Church for later forms of asceticism and Gnosticism, on the in- sufficient ground that some of these Gospels which originated in heretical circles found some favour amongst Christians. Von Dobschiitz, who has studied these writings from this point of view, has called attention to facts which have an im- portant bearing on the discussion, as, ¢.g., that the adherents of Gnosticism who claimed to belong to the Christian Church, and sought to propagate their peculiar views within its borders, did not of their own accord leave the Church,—it was the Church that excluded them ; also that the Docetic type of Christianity current in Egypt at the end of the lst and at the beginning of the 2nd cent. was at a very early date discredited as heretical, though it long continued to dominate Christian thought as expressed in Christian art (Theol. Lit.- Zeitung, 1903, No. 12).
In this article the contents of the various apo- cryphal Gospels are given, sometimes in full, but always in sufficient detail to enable the reader to judge of their worth. This course has been taken in the belief that first-hand acquaintance with these writings establishes, by contrast, the unique value of the canonical Gospels, and furnishes the most conclusive refutation of the theories which seek to lift these extravagant stories to the same level as the narratives of the four Evangelists. To pass from the NT to these apocryphal Gospels, in so far as they embody independent traditions, in- volves a complete change of psychological climate. The wisdom of Westcott’s words is confirmed by recent research: ‘The completeness of the anti- thesis which these spurious stories offer to the Divine record appears at once—if we may beallowed for a moment to compare light with darkness—in relation to the treatment of the three great ele- ments of the Gospel history—Miracles, Parables, and Prophecy, the lessons of power, of nature, and of providence. In the apocryphal miracles we find no worthy conception of the laws of providential interference ; they are wrought to supply personal wants, or to gratify private feelings, and often are positively immoral. Nor, again, is there any spiritual element in their working. . . . The apo- cryphal Gospels are also entirely without parables ; they exhibit no sense of those deeper relations between nature and man—between corruption and sin—which are so frequently declared in the Synoptic Gospels. . . . Yet more, they do not recognize the office of Prophecy. History in them becomes a mere collection of traditions, and is regarded neither as the fulfilment of the past nor as the type of the future’ (Introd. to Study of the Gospels, Appendix D),
iv. RECEPTION AND INFLUENCE. —In tracing the influence of these writings no question arises, as in regard to the OT Apocrypha, of their recep- tion by any section of the Church as canonical or deutero-canonical books. In the 2nd cent. four Gospels, and only four, were recognized. There is also ample evidence, as will hereafter be manifest, that most of the apocryphal Gospels have always been condemned by orthodox Christians. A few, however, had an extensive and early circulation amongst Christians in the East: for example, the Protevangelium of James was read in churches in the 4th cent., and was translated into the Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic languages. Details of such usage will be given in the notes on the several