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APOCRYPHA, EARLY CHRISTIAN

The terms “OT” and “NT Apocrypha” (from Gk. apókryphos, "to be hidden or concealed,” subsequently “esoteric”) designate a diverse collection of writings outside the two canons featuring biblical figures or events. This bifurcation is problematic when, e.g., a Christian reworking of an OT or Jewish pseudepigraphical narrative does not fit well into either category. Early Christian Apocrypha is a better designation than NT Apocrypha because, although these texts employ figures from the NT, they do not necessarily hold a close connection to the NT theologically and may well have been written before the canon was formed. This amorphous corpus with no internal homogeneity entails a wide range of genres including gospels, agrapha, apocalypses, epistles, treatises, and acts. Attempting to categorize texts into these genres, however, is also problematic because they often do not fit neatly into one classification or another. Some combine several genres or present one genre in the form of another, such as a revelation discourse in the form of an epistle. Indeed, no pure forms exist because texts often build upon smaller literary units, such as hymns, creeds, poems, liturgical formulas, and parenetic material.

The apocryphal Gospels often include words and traditions about Jesus, as well as narratives concerning his birth, childhood, teachings, or Passion. This literature has preserved such well-known traditions as the animals by the manger, the birth in the cave, childhood miracles, and the descent of Christ into hell. Also portrayed are the actions and words of Jesus’ disciples and family members, such as in the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Thomas. The texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945 opened up a large treasure chest of materials providing almost 50 previously unknown texts, some of which are apocryphal. Other discoveries of ancient manuscripts in monasteries and libraries in the 20th century and even recent decades indicate that studies of these texts carry much potential for future research projects. Among these finds are papyrus fragments bearing sayings of the Lord (agrapha), which even if not historically reliable reveal a great deal about the communities that preserved them. Such early Christian saying traditions as the Gospel of Thomas and the Dialogue of the Savior appear to have imbedded within them rather early oral traditions. Similar to the way in which Luke, Matthew, and Tatian bring together sources to produce a harmony, so too do certain apocryphal texts, such as the Gospel of the Ebionites, which harmonized several traditions and sources at a time when writers were freer to do so because the Gospels were not yet canonized.

The apocalypses incorporate revelations, visions, epiphanies, or postresurrection appearances to the disciples. These texts are often extant only in fragments, while others are known by name only and have yet to be found. They have preserved exhortations to repentance and, through pictorial language, portrayals of the last judgment and of heaven and hell (Apocalypse of Paul). The pseudepigraphical epistles often complement or correct doctrine and are not that much unlike the production of Deutero-Pauline epistles. Among the pseudepigraphical epistles are Paul’s Epistle to the Laodiceans (Col. 4:16) and the third Epistle to the Corinthians (Acts of Paul). Other significant epistles include the correspondence between Christ and Abgar and between Paul and Seneca.

Some of the most well-known apocryphal texts are the Acts, such as the Acts of Paul and Thecla, of Peter, of Thomas, of John, of Andrew, and of Philip. The first five of these were ascribed by Photius to a certain Leucius Charinus, although clearly according to style and content they were not authored by the same person. These texts often present a truncated biography of an apostle, usually beginning with the reception of his or her mission and including his or her speeches, travels, and/or miracles. Often the final sections of the Acts describe the martyrdoms of the apostles, which must have had tremendous inspirational value in times of persecution. Many of the apocryphal texts focus upon certain apostles or claim to have been written by them, thus invoking his or her authority as the receiver, transmitter, and guarantor of that particular message. In the production of these Acts eventually a development occurs from featuring one apostle to portraying two working in tandem in their missions. Another transition occurs in the 4th and 5th centuries when apocryphal literature develops into hagiographical material such that they are sometimes difficult to distinguish. These Acts and other stories present traditions concerning the nativity and life of Mary the Mother, the inverse crucifixion of Peter, and the missionary activities of certain female disciples, such as Mary Magdalene (Acts of Philip), Thecla (Acts of Paul and Thecla), and Maximilla (Acts of Andrew). Because these texts depict such well-known but unusual narratives and were virtually the only sources for physical descriptions of the apostles (reliable or not), they are essential for understanding motifs in Christian iconography from late Hellenistic times through the Medieval period.

Because the early Christian communities did not value the same texts, this literature holds significance for scholars for shedding light upon the diverse interests in an ever-expanding Christianity. Although often presenting novelistic and imaginative elements, these texts also preserve historical kernels essential to reconstructing early Christian thought and theologies. The traditions surrounding certain apostles in some cases stem from the very origins of Christianity. With a plurality of recipients, some of the communities valuing these texts highly (e.g., Montanists, Manichaeans, or Priscillianists) were eventually marginalized by what came to be known as dominant Christianity. Filled with legends, unusual miracles, and even talking animals, these texts nevertheless offer insights into the religious, social, and cultural worlds of early Christianity, particularly the folk religion of the masses during apostolic times. They parallel, supplement, or perhaps even predate some of the information that the canonical literature presents, apparently with a variety of purposes ranging from entertainment to propaganda, from polemic or apologetic material to instruction and encouragement during persecution or even martyrdom.

The issues of dates, provenance, and authorship are often difficult or impossible to solve. Some of the texts could have been written as early as the 1st century, the largest portion in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, with some (e.g., Pistis Sophia) stemming anywhere from the 3rd to the 5th centuries. It is difficult to set a chronological limit to the range of dates for apocryphal literature because such literature continued to be produced, revised, and redacted for centuries with no clear-cut century in which it ceased to be created. Texts such as the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas were written early enough to have been considered for inclusion in the canon. In fact, Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest extant codex of the NT, includes both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas in its collection. One cannot, therefore, readily generalize negatively about the reception of these texts as they were sometimes read as Scripture in the liturgical assemblies of some of the early Christian churches and still read even in the Middle Ages. Often the titles of the texts have been lost and have only been supplied by later commentators; some texts were written anonymously or pseudepigraphically.

Partly because of theology and partly because of this pseudepigraphical nature of the texts, some early church writers portrayed these texts as spurious, thus clouding them with the suspicion of heresy. Although the numerous patristic references prove how widespread they were, these references also contributed to their being viewed as inferior to what became their canonical counterparts. The broad geographical existence of these texts points to the extent of their popularity as they appear either in the original or in translation in Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian, Slavic, Gaelic, and Ethiopic. Determining the language of the original text or reconstructing fragmentary evidence is sometimes quite difficult. For example, both the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Peter contain the “Quo vadis?” scene of Peter’s encounter with Christ on the Appian Way, signaling that part of the ongoing challenge of these texts is determining the extent of their intertextuality or interdependence, as well as determining fissures between source material and redaction. These questions in addition to the issues of oral transmission and performances, gender studies, the complexity of manuscript evidence, and textual reconstruction provide fertile areas for future research. For that purpose critical editions with translations and notes are increasingly more available. Sources include Richard A. Lipsius and Max Bonnet for Acta apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1891–). English translations exist in Edgar Hennecke-Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha (Philadelphia, 1963-65; 2nd ed., Louisville, 1991-92); James K. Elliot, The Apocryphal New Testament, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1993); and a forthcoming four-volume project from Polebridge Press. An international group of scholars, led by François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain, called the Association pour lʾétude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne, has dedicated itself to intensive research in this field, thus helping to overcome years of scholarly neglect of these vital and rich sources of early Christian traditions.

Bibliography. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Chicago, 1987); J. M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd ed. (San Francisco, 1988); D. M. Scholer, Nag Hammadi Bibliography. NHS 1 (Leiden, 1971).

Ann Graham Brock

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

APOCRYPHA, EARLY CHRISTIAN

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)