(7.) There are various sayings ascribed to our Lord by Clemens Alexandrinus and several of the fathers.
One of the most remarkable is, "Be ye skilful money- changers." This is supposed to have been contained in the Gospel of the Nazarenes. Others think it is an early interpolation into the text of Scripture. Origen and Jerome cite it as a saying of Christ's.
(8.) In Origen, Contra Celsum, lib. i, is an apocry- phal history of our Saviour and his parents, in which it is reproached to Christ that he was born in a mean village, of a poor woman who gained her livelihood by spinning, and was turned off by her husband, a car- penter. Celsus adds that Jesus was obliged by pov- erty to work as a servant in Egypt, where he learned many powerful arts, and thought that on this account he ought to be esteemed as a god. There was a similar account contained in some apocryphal books extant in the time of St. Augustine. It was probably a Jewish forgery. Augustine, Epiphanius, and others of the fathers, equally cite sayings and acts of Christ, which they probably met with in the early apocryphal gospels. (9.) There is a spurious hymn of Christ's extant, ascribed to the Priscillianists by St. Augustine. There are also many such acts and sayings to be found in the Koran of Mahomet, and others in the writings of the Mohammedan doctors (sec Toland's Nazarenus'). (10.) There is a prayer ascribed to our Saviour by ! the same persons, which is printed in Latin and Arabic in the learned Selden's Commentary on Euty chins' s An- nals of A lexandria, published at Oxford, in 1650, by Dr. Pococke. It contains a petition for pardon of sin, such as is sufficient to stamp it as a forgery.
(11.) There is a curious letter said to have been written to our Saviour by Agbarus (or Abgarus), king of Edessa, requesting him to -come and heal a disease under which he labored. The letter, together with the supposed reply of Christ, are preserved by Eusebius. This learned historian asserts that he obtained the documents, together witli the history, from the public registers of the city of Edessa, where they existed in his time in the Syriac language, from which he trans- lated them into Greek. See Abgaius.
These letters are also mentioned by Ephracm Syrus, deacon of Edessa, at the close of the fourth century. J Jerome refers to them in his comment on Matt, x, and | they are mentioned by Pope Gclasius, who rejects them as spurious and apocryphal. They are, however, referred to as genuine by Evagrius and later histo- 1 rians. Among modern writers the genuineness of these letters has been maintained by Dr. Parker (in ' the preface to his Demonstration of the Lair of Nature | and the Christian Religion, part ii, § 1G, p. 285) ; by Dr. Cave (in his Historia Lilcraria, vol. i, p. 23); and by I Grabe (in his Spicilegrxm Putrum, particularly p. 319). : On the other hand, most writers, including the great majority of Roman Catholic divines, reject them as spurious. Mr. Jones, in his valuable work on the Ca- nonical Authority of the New Testament, although he does not venture to deny that the Acts were contained j in the public registers of the city of Edessa, yet gives l it, as a probable conjecture, in favor of which he ad- ' duces some strong reasons, drawn from internal evi- ' dence, that this whole chapter (viz. the 13th of the
first book) in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius is : itself an interpolation. See Epistles (Spumous). I (12.) The other apocrypha] history related by Eva- 1 grius, out of Procopius, states that Agbarus sent a limner to draw the picture of our Saviour, but that not being able to do it by reason of the brightness of j Christ's countenance, our " Saviour took a cloth, and laying it upon his divine and life-giving face, lie im- pressed his likeness on it." This story of Christ's picture is related by several, in the Second Council of Nice, and by other ancient writers, one of whom (Leo) asserts th.it he went to Edessa, and saw " the image of Christ, not made with hands, worshipped by the people." This is the first of the four likenesses of Christ mentioned by ancient writers. The second is that said to have been stamped on a handkerchief
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by Christ, and given to Veronica, who had followed him to his crucifixion. The third is the statue of Christ, stated by Eusebius to have been erected by the woman whom he had cured of an issue of blood, and which the learned historian acquaints us he saw at Ca?sarea Philippi (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vii, IS). Sozomen and Cassiodorus assert that the emperor Julian took down this statue and erected his own in its place. It is, however, stated by Asterius, a writer of the fourth century, that it was taken away by Max- imums, the predecessor of Constantine. The fourth picture is one which Nicodemus presented to Gamaliel, which was preserved at Berytus, and which having been crucified and pierced with a spear by the Jews, there issued out from the side blood and water. This is stated in a spurious treatise concerning the passion and image of Christ, falsely ascribed to Athanasius. Eusebius, the historian, asserts (1. c.) that he had here seen the pictures of Peter, Paul, and of Christ himself, in his time (see also Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. v, 21). That such relics were actually exhibited is therefore indubitable, but their genuineness is quite another question. They were probably of a piece with the papal miracles and pious frauds of superstitious times. — Kitto, s. v. See Jesus Christ.