Some of the apocryphal books have not been with- out their defenders in modern times. The Ajwstolical Canons and Constitutions, and the various Liturgies as- cribed to St. Peter, St. Mark, etc., and published by Fabricius in his Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, were considered by the learned and eccentric William Winston, and the no less learned Grabe, to be of equal authority with any of the confessedly genuine apos- tolic compositions (see Whiston's Primitive Christian- ity and Grabe's Sjncilegium). They are, however, re- garded by most as originally not of an earlier date than the second century, and as containing interpola- tions which betray the fourth or fifth ; they can, there- fore, only be considered as evidence of the practice of the Church at the period when they were written. They have generally been appealed to by the learned as having preserved the traditions of the age imme- diately succeeding the apostolic ; and, from the re- markable coincidence which is observable in the most essential parts of the so-called Apostolic Liturgies, it
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is by no means improbable that, notwithstanding their interpolations, they contain the leading portions of the most ancient Christian forms of worship. Most of the apocryphal Gospels and Acts noticed by the fathers, and condemned in the catalogue of Gelasius, which are generally thought to have been the fictions of heretics in the second century, have long since fallen into ob- livion. Of those which remain, although some have been considered by learned men as genuine works of the apostolic age, yet the greater part are universally rejected as spurious, and as written in the second and third centuries. A few are, with great appearance of probability, assigned to Leucius Clarinus, supposed to be the same with Leontius and Seleucus, who was no- torious for similar forgeries at the end of the third cen- tury. The authorship of the Epistle of Barnabas (q. v.) is still a matter of dispute ; and there appears but too much reason to believe that there existed grounds for the charge made by Celsus against the early Chris- tians, that they had interpolated or forged the ancient Sibylline Oracles. In the letter of Pope Innocent I to St. Exupere, bishop of Toulouse, written about the year 405, after giving a catalogue of the books form- ing the canon of Scripture (which includes five books of Solomon, Tobit, and two books of Maccabees), he observes: "But the others, which are written under the name of Matthias, or of James the Less, or those which were written by one Leucius under the name of Peter and John, or those under the name of Andrew by Xenocheris and Leonidas the philosopher, or under the name of Thomas ; or if there be any others, you must know that they are not only to be rejected, but condemned." These sentiments were afterward con- firmed by the Roman Council of seventy bishops, held under Pope Gelasius in 494, in the acts of which there • is a long list of apocryphal Gospels and Acts, the greater part of which are supposed to have perished. The acts of this council, however, are not generally considered to be g3nuine. But, whatever authority is to be ascribed to these documents, it cannot be de- nied that the early Church evinced a high degree of discrimination in the difficult task of distinguishing the genuine from the spurious books, as has been well observed by Jones (New and Full Method, i, 15) and Baxter (Saint's Best, p. 2). — Kitto. See Canon.
The following is a list of the genuine writings men- tioned in the Old Test., but now lost, or generally thought so to be :
The " Prophecy of Enoch" (Jude 14). But see Enoch.
The "Book of the Wars of the Lord" (Num. xxi, 14).
The "Book of the Just" (Josh, x, 13; 2 Sam. i, IS). See
Jasheb. The '-Book of the Order of the Kingdom," or of the Royal
Administration, written by Samuel (1 Sam. x, 25). See
Kin*;. The "Books of Nathan and Gad" concerning King David
(1 Chron. xxix, '29). The " Books of Nathan, AlIIJAH, and Iddo" concerning King
Solomon (2 Chron. ix, 29). ■•Soi.omiin's l'arabli's, Songs, and Treatises on Natural His-
tory" il Kings iv, 32 sq ). But see Proverbs; Canti-
ills; I.CCI.ESIASTF8.
The " Rook of the Acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi, 41).
The " I'.. ".I; of Sebaiah" concerning King Rehoboam (2 Chron.
xii, 15). Tlic " Book of Jeiiu" concerning Jehosh.-iphat (2 Chron. XX, 34). The "Book of Isaiah" concerning King Uzziah (2 Chron.
xxvi, 22). But sec Ismail The " Words of the Seers" to King Manasseh (2 Chron. xxvi,
■ ■> The "Book of Lamentations" over King Josiah (2 Chron,
xxxv, 2.V. Bui see Lamentations. The" Vol f Jeremiah" burned by Jehudi (ler. xxxvi, 2,
0, 23). But Bee Jeremiah. The "Chronicle of the Kings of Judah" (1 Kings xiv, 29;
xv, T). But see Chronicles. The "Chronicle of the Kings of Israel" (1 Kings xiv, 29).
Bui ee < Ihronioles. The following is a list of pseudepigraphal books re- lating; to the Old Test., Still extant (exclusive of those contained in the definitively so called "Apocrypha"), with the language in which ancient copies have been discovered. See each title, or professed author here
cited, under its proper bead in the body of this Cyclo- paedia.