AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.—Christian History.

Apocryphal Scriptures.

This page includes writings that purport to be scriptural, but have not been accepted into the Protestant or Catholic canon. The books called “Apocrypha” by Protestants and considered canonical by Catholics will be found on the page of Bibles.

The Apocryphal New Testament. Being the apocryphal Gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses, with other narratives and fragments. Newly translated by Montague Rhodes James. Oxford, 1924. —Probably the most complete single collection.

The Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ, translated from the originals in Greek, Latin, Syriac, etc., by B. Harris Cowper. Second edition. London: Williams and Norgate, 1867.

The Apocryphal New Testament, Being All the Gospels, Epistles, and Other Pieces Now Extant, Attributed in the First Four Centuries to Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and Their Companions, and Not Included in the New Testament by Its Compilers. London: William Hone, 1820. —A fine piece of marketing. By translating the texts into King James English and printing them in double columns divided into paragraph verses, the publisher creates the impression that these are somehow the “lost books” of the Bible; and indeed the very same collection is still in print as The Lost Books of the Bible.

Coptic Apocryphal Gospels: Translations, Together with the Texts of Some of Them. By Forbes Robinson. Cambridge, 1896.

A Fragment of the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter found at Akhmim in Egypt, translated from the Greek. London: F. Norgate and Co., 1893.

Studia Sinaitica No. XI. Apocrypha Syriaca. The Protevangelion Jacobi and Transitus Mariae. With texts from the Septuagint, the Corán, the Peshitta, and from a Syriac hymn in a Syro-Arabic palimpsest of the fifth and other centuries. Edited and translated by Agnes Smith Lewis, M.R.A.S. With an appendix of Palestinian Syriac texts from the Taylor-Schechter Collection. London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1902.

The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, Together with the Apocalypses of Each One of Them, edited from the Syriac MS, with a translation and introduction, by J. Rendel Harris. Cambridge, 1900.

Sayings of Our Lord from a early Greek papyrus discovered and edited, with translation and commentary, by Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt. London: Henry Frowde, 1897.

The Oxyrhynchus Sayings of Jesus found in 1903, with the sayings called “Logia” found in 1897: a lecture by the Rev. Charles Taylor. Oxford, 1905.

Paralipomena: Remains of Gospels and Sayings of Christ. By Bernhard Pick. Chicago: Open Court, 1908.

The Book of Enoch: Translated from the Ethiopic, with introduction and notes. By Rev. George H. Schodde. Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1911.

Pistis Sophia. A Gnostic Gospel (with extracts from the books of the Saviour appended) originally translated from Greek into Coptuc and now for the first time Englished from Schwartze’s Latin version of the only known Coptic ms. and checked by Amélineu’s French version with an introduction by G. R. S. Mead. London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, 1896. —Note the publisher and treat with careful suspicion.

Pistis Sophia. A Gnostic miscellany: being for the most part extracts from the books of the Saviour, to which are added excerpts from a cognate literature. Englished (with an introduction and annotated bibliography) by G. R. S. Mead, author of ‘Thrice-Great Hermes,’ ‘Fragments of a Faith Forgotten,’ ‘Echoes from the Gnosis,’ etc. Editor of ‘The Quest.’ New and completely revised edition. London: John M. Watkins, 1921. —Again, the translator’s previous publications fail to inspire confidence.