5. Although the Gospel of Marcion, or rather that of Luke, as corrupted h\ that heretic in the second centur}', is no longer extant, professor Hahn lias en- deavored to restore it from the extracts found in an- cient writers, especially Tertullian and Epiphanius. See Marciox. This work has been published by Thilo.
G. Thilo has also published a collation of a corrupted Gresk Gospel of St. John, found in the arcliives of the Knights Templars in Paris. This work was first noticed (in 1828) by the Danish bishop Muenter, as well as by abbe Gregoire, ex-bishop of Blois. It is a vellum manuscript in large 4to, said by persons skilled in paleography to have been executed in the ISth or 14th century, and to have been copied from a Jlount Athos MS. of the 12th. The writing is in gold letters. It is divided into nineteen sections, which are called gospels, and is on this account supposed to have been designed for liturgical use. These sections, correspond- ing in most instances with our chapters (of which, how- ever, the twentieth and twentj'-first are omitted), are subdivided into verses, the same as those now in use, and said to have been first invented by Robert Ste- phens. See Verses. The omissions and interpola- tions (which latter are in barbarous Greek) represent the heresies and mysteries of the Knights Templars. Notwithstanding all this, Thilo considers it to be mod- ern, and fabricated since the commencement of the 18th century.
7. One of the most curious of the apocryphal gospels is the Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts of Pilate. It is a kind of theological romance, parlh' founded on the canonical gospels. The first part, to the end of ch. XV, is little more than a paraphrastic account of the trial and death of Christ, embellished with fabulous additions. From that to the end (ch. xxviii) is a de- tailed account of Christ's descent into hell to liberate the spirits in prison, the history of which is said to have been oVitained from Lenthius and Charinus, sons of Simeon, who were two of those " saints who slept," but were raised from the dead, and came into the holy city after the resurrection. This part of the history is so "far valuable, that it throws some light upon the an- cient ideas current among Christians on this subject. It is therefore considered by Birch {Auctarinm, Proleg. p. vi) to be as valuable in this respect as the writings of the fathers.
The subscription to this book states that it was found bj' the emjieror Theodosius among the public records in Jerusalem, in the hall of Pontius Pilate (A.D. 380). We read in ch. xxvii that Pilate himself wrote all the
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transactions from the relation of Nicodcmus, Avho had | taken them down in Hebrew ; and we are informed by Epiphanius that the Quartodecimans ajijjealed to the Ads oj' Pilate in favor of tlieir opinions as to the proper j time of keeping Easter. It was written in these Acts that our Saviour suffered on the eighth Kal. of April, a circumstanco which is stated in the subscription to the present .4rts. It is uncertain, however, when this work was tirst called by the name of Nicodemus.
The two ancient apologists, Justin Martyr and Ter- tullian, both a])peal in confirmation of our Saviour's miracles and crucifixion to the Acts of Pilate (Justin Martyr, AiHil. p. 7G, 8-1; Tertullian, Apol. c. 21, or Eng- lish transl. by Chevallier, ISoo). From this circum- stance it has generally been held that such documents must have existed, although tliis fact has been called in cjuestion by Tanaquil Faber and Le Clerc (Jones, On the Canon., vol. ii, p. 282, pt. iii, ch. 29). These appeals, however, in all probability first furnished the idea of the present pious fraud. Mr. Jones supposes that this may have been done in order to silence those pagans who denied the existence of such Acts. The citations of those fathers are all found in the present work. (See Henke, De Pontii Pilati actis in causa J. C. ad Tiber. missis, 1784.)
We have already seen that a book entitled the A cts of Pilate existed among the Quartodecimans, a sect which originated at the close of the tliird century. We are informed by Eusebius that the heathens forged cer- tain Acts of Pilate, full of all sorts of blasphemy against Christ, which they procured (A.D. 303) to be dispersed through the empire ; and that it was enjoined on school- masters to put them into the hands of children, who were to learn them by heart instead of their lessons. But the character of the Gospel of Kicodemus, which contains no blasphemy of the kind, forbids us to iden- tify it with those ^4 c^s. This gospel probably had its origin in a later age. From the circumstance of its contaiuijg the names of Lentliius and Charinus, Mr. Jones conceives it to have been the work of the celebra- ted fabricator of gospels, Lucius Charinus, who flourish- ed in the beginning of the 4th century. It is certai^lj' not later than the 5th or 6th. " During the persecu- tion under Maximin," says Gieseler {Eccles. Hist. vol. i, § 24, note), "the heathens first brought forward cer- tain calumnious Acts of Pilate (Euseb. ix, 5), to which the Christians opposed others (Epiphan. Ilcvr. 79, § 1), which were afterwards in various waj-s amended. One of these improved versions was afterwards called the Gospel of jSicodemus." See Acts of Pilate.