3. Writing at the close of the 1st cent. A.D., St. Luke observes in the preface to his Gospel that 'many' had already undertaken to compose a narrative of the life of Jesus : ttoWoI iirexelprjffav dvaTd^aaOai dirjy-qcnv, kt\. (1'), He does not intend to convey any impression of disparagement by the term iirexelp-riffav. He is not satished with their ■work, but he does not dismiss his predecessors as unauthorized. Nor does he claim for himself any special inspiration. What others have done he proposes to do ; only, it is to be in a more com- plete and orderly fashion.
The Muratorian Canon, in its extant form, does not happen to mention any uncanonical Gospels which are to be avoided by the faithful, unless we are meant to understand some of them as included in the obscure closing words. But more than a hun- dred years after St. Luke wrote his preface, Origen commented on it as follows : ' Possibly the term iTrexelpTT^o-v contains an implicit condemnation of those Avho betook themselves hastily and without any spiritual gift (xapicr/xaroj) to the composition of Gospels. Thus jNIatthew ovk iTrex^lpri(7ev, but wrote under the impulse of the Holy Spirit ; so did Mark and John, and similarly Luke. But those Avho composed the Gospel called Kar' A/yi^Trrioi/s and that entitled Tau' Aw5e\-a, they iirex^lp-qixav. There is also a Gospel Kara Qwixav current. Basilides has also ventured to write a Gospel Kara Ba<nM8r]v. Many indeed iirexeipyjcxav : there is the Gospel Kara 'hlaOLav and many others ; but the Church of God accepts only the four.' It is not certain whether Origen intended to suggest that the first two or three Gospels which he named were among the uninspired predecessors of Luke. Probably he did. But the interest of the passage for us lies in the names of the Gospels which his erroneous interpretation of iirexeipTja-av leads him to mention. They must have been among the most prominent of those known to him.
In the 4th cent, Eusebius {HE iii. 25) ends his catalo,gue of the canonical or accepted Scrijjtures with the remark that his object in drawing it up has been ' that we may know both these works and those cited by heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for example, such books as tlie Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them. . . . They are not to be placed even among the rejected writings (iv vodoi^), but are all to be put aside as absurd and impious.' Further down in the same century we come upon Ambrose (CSEL xxxii. p. 10 f.), in his prologue to an exposition of Luke, following Origen almost verbatim. He admits that some of these un- canonical Gospels are read by orthodox Christians, e.g. the Gospel of the Twelve, the Gospel of
480 GOSPELS (UjS^CANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANOJSICAL)
Basilides, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Matthias ('novi aliud scriptum secundum Matthian '). But ' we read, lest we should be ignorant ; we read, not in order to keep but to repudiate them ' !
In the prologue to his commentary upon Matthew, Jerome (A.D. 346-420) also mentions some of the uncanonical Gospels, but his information adds nothing to the data supplied by Origen, from whom he probably derived in the main his know- ledge of these documents. After quoting Luke's preface, he applies its language to Gospels 'like that according to the Egyptians, and according to Thomas, and according to Matthias, and according to Bartholomew, also the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, and of Basilides, and of Apelles, as well as others which it would take a very long time to enumerate.' Following Origen, he interprets Luke's eir£X€Lpr}<rav of unauthorized, uninspired attempts. To them the prophetic word of Ezekiel applies (13*- ^) : ' Woe to them that prophesy out of their own heart, wlio walk after their own spirit, who say. Thus saith the Lord, and the Lord has not sent them.' Also, the word of Jn 10*: 'all who came before me were thieves and robbers.' Note, says Jerome, ' they ca/7ie ' ; not ' they were sent' !
In Pope Innocent's Epistle (A.D. 405) to Jerome's friend. Bishop Exsuperius of Toulouse, the canonical list is followed by a note of ' cetera autem qute uel sub nomine Mathiae siue lacobi minoris ; uel sub nomine Petri et lohannis, quoe a quodam Leucio scripta sunt ; uel sub nomine Andre£e, quse a Xenocaride et Leonida philosophis ; * uel sub nomine Thomae ; et si qua sunt alia ; non solum repudianda uerum etiam noueris esse damnanda.' This is a fair specimen of the opinions held by the authorities of the Western Church ; but the official view did not represent the popular, and, as Leipoldt observes,t ' such opponents of the apoc- ryphal Gospels were doubtless in the minority. The majority of theologians treated books like the Gospels of James and Thomas not indeed as canonical but stilLas genuinely apostolic'
Finally, the so-called 'Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis'+ includes a list of apocryphal § Gospels which, by the 6th cent., were supposed to have been in existence :
'Evangelium nomine Mathiae
„ ,, Barnabse !|
„ „ Jacobi minoris
„ „ Petri apostoli
„ „ ThomiB quibus Manichei
utuntur Evangelia nomine Bartholoraaei ,, ,, Andrea}
,, quae falsavit Lucianus ,, ,, ,, Hesychius