'orld with
i lofty ethical i
tain circles distorted, by the foreign elements of its environment. Oriental mythology and Greek philosophy had met. and given rise to syncretistic systems which exerted a deep influence on men's conceptions of the Christian faith and life. Traces of this ! clearly c
hildhood stories in the Gospel of Thoinas. The confusion and vagueness of the Christo- logical views in the different Apocryphal Gospels also bear witness to the great variety of influences which were at work in the early Church, and en- able us to realize with what trouble the conception of the Divine manhood of Jesus was eventually established. The indecision and one - sidedness which are revealed in doctrinal matters are also traceable in the interpretation of the ethical content of Christ's teaching and life. Ascetic and Encratite views are found in several Gospels, and no doubt VOL. I.— 43
were characteristic of all the Gnostic Gospels. A close sympathy with the true ethical spirit of Christianity is, liowever, noticeable in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, in which stress is laid on acts of mercy and brotherly kindness ; and in the ' Traditions of Matthias ' mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, and possibly identical with the Gnostic Gospel of Mdtthias, the doctrine of Christian re- sponsibility for others' welfare, in its most stringent form, is very forcibly put : ' If the neighbour of an elect person sins, the elect has sinned ; for if he had lived according to the counsels of the Word, his neighbour would have so esteemed his manner of life that he would have kept free from sin.'
The apologetic interest which is so characteristic of 2nd cent, writers (witness the Apologies of Aris- tides, Justin, TertuUian, etc.) is reflected in several of the Apocryphal Gospels.
Traces are to be found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, in which the servant of the high priest is a witness to the Resur- rection. A later stage of the apologetic movement may be observed in the Gospel [of Peter, where Mate is practically exonerated from blame for Chr'St's condemnation, and is made to bear witness to Christ's Divinity. In the Acts of Pilate {Gospel of Nicodemus) the movement has reached its climax in the reverence which the Romans pay to Jesus at His trial, in the miraculous homage of the Roman standards, and in the irrefutable evidence given of Christ's resurrection, to the con- viction of His enemies.
A subsidiary element in estimating the value of the Apocryphal Gospels is their antiquarian in- terest. A passage in the Prutevangcliuin of James (ch. 18) affords an interesting parallel to the scene in the fairy tale, ' The Sleeping Beauty,' when by a magic spell the whole of nature suddenly stands still, and all living beings are immovably rooted where they are. The Childhood Gospel of Thomas, useless as it is as a source of information about Christ's youth, gives a remarkably vivid and con- vincing picture of Je^vish village life. Caution must be observed in trusting the details of Jewish life in the Protevangelium ; many of them are entirely unhistorical.
V. Doctrinal characteristics. — As stated above in § ii., one of the main impulses which led the production of Apocryphal Gospels was the to establish peculiar tenets held in certain spels of this tyi^e, of our Lord's life a ing, were in reality Tendetizschriften, doctrinal treatises conceived and written in the interests of a definite system of thought. Such were the numerous Gnostic Gospels, of which the .smallest fragments remain. But even those Gospels in the production of which there was no deliberate dog- matic purpose, are doctrinally significant. It is true of them, equally with the canonical Gospels, that they were written in the interests of faith, iK TrldTem eli wl<mv ; the writers were not mere chroniclers of past events, giving information about One in whose life and personality they had no vital concern ; they were believers, for whom Christ was Lord. The religious value which Jesus had for them, and the manner in which they conceived of His person, were reflected in tlieir narrative of His life. However small tlie value of the writings may be as authentic sources of information regarding Je.sus, they are interesting as showing by a side light what men thought about Him. How far the early Church as a whole was from any clear and uniform conception of Christ, is apparent from the Apocryphal Gospels. In them we have not only the reflexion of views representing the main stream of Christian thought, but also the foreshadowings of doctrines which later, in their developed form, were rejected as heretical.
The maiority of the Apocryphal Gospels betray a heretical tendency, which varies broadly according as the Divine or the human nature of Christ is denied. On the one hand, there m the Ebionitic conception of Jesus, with its rejection of His
Christian circles. Gospels of this type, althoudi professedly narratives of our Lord's life and teac^i-
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GOSPELS (APOCRYPHAL)
GOSPELS (APOCRYPHAL)
^«.v...j u.tti..., « V. other, the DocetiCt with its obscuration
r denial of His true liumanity. Both these opposing: views find expression in the Apoer\iihal Gospels. The former is found in the Gospel aceonliiui to the Ilebretvs and in the Gospel of the Twelve AiMstkis ; the latter, somewhat veiled, in the Gospel of Peter, but fullv developed in the Gnostic Gospels, in which the Saviour— tlie heavenly Christ— freed from the association with the phantasmal earthly Christ, and made the possessor of His full powers through the death and resurrection, declares the true wisdom to His disciples.