Biblical Apocrypha. Apocrypha - why the Church rejected the Apocrypha

What is Apocrypha? How, when and why did they appear?
How different is the Jesus of the Apocrypha from the Savior, faith in whom has been preserved by the Church for centuries? And most importantly, is there something in these monuments of Christian literature that would be fundamentally important for a believer, but at the same time carefully hidden from “ordinary people” and accessible only to “initiates”?

From time to time, the media explodes with another sensation on the topic of biblical texts. With all the diversity, such news comes down to one scheme: finally, the researchers managed to find ancient written sources that allow you to take a different look at the history of Christianity and even show that the Church does not teach at all what Christ and His first followers spoke about.
After some time, when the hype subsides, as a rule, it turns out that the found written monument is nothing more than a copy or version of an old and long-known apocrypha, which historians have dealt with before, and that there is nothing fundamentally new in the found find. .
However, despite the obvious desire to create a sensation from scratch, the authors of both the apocrypha themselves and the high-profile reports about them are doing a very serious job. Its goal is to offer the inexperienced reader and viewer a different image of Christ, often strikingly different from the one witnessed by church tradition.

What is Apocrypha?

Those who are now over forty years old perfectly remember children's books of the Soviet era. Beautiful, kind, interesting works, where the heroes defeated evil, showing examples of courage, mutual assistance, loyalty and love. But there were also such publications in which the child was told in a biased way about the Bolshevik Party, revolutionaries, "grandfather Lenin" and other similar concepts and personalities. The authors of these publications deliberately kept silent about the negative features of those they wrote about, offering the young reader a popular and largely fictional portrait of this or that figure, clearly dividing the world into “good” friends and “bad” strangers.
In the language of the Church, such creativity is called apocrypha - this is the designation of texts that somehow relate to Christianity, but are of very dubious origin. But before acquiring just such a meaning, this term has undergone many modifications.
The word "apocrypha" is translated from ancient Greek as "secret", "hidden". Initially, it was almost a curse and was used to refer to heretical books that were used in their close circle by sectarians who pretended to be Christians and believed that they possessed saving knowledge that was inaccessible to "ordinary mortals." The unusualness of the doctrine they professed, as well as the isolation of these sects themselves, forced their adherents to hide their true postulates and open secret records only to the most dedicated and “worthy”, in their opinion, people.
Over time, when Gnosticism (this is the name of a number of various occult and mystical beliefs that were widespread in the Roman Empire and Western Asia in the II-III centuries) began to actively polemize with the Church, the apocryphal writings became the property of the broad masses and ceased to be secret. But the very concept of apocrypha remained. Now heretics put a sacred meaning into it and insisted that it was in their writings that the truth was contained, and that the Gospel and other Scriptures were supposedly a distortion and processing of the true words of Christ. From now on, for heretics, the Apocrypha was "secret" not so much because of its "underground origin", but because it contains some very important information, accessible to understanding only by the most "enlightened" and "advanced". Of course, these texts could be read by a simple person. But he, according to the sectarians, could not see in them the hidden mysterious meaning that the Gnostic saw.
However, this concept also has a positive meaning, because the apocrypha was created not only in a heretical environment. Members of the Church also quite often took to the pen and recorded what modern researchers would classify as folk art. These written monuments contained biographies of saints, apostles and the Savior, told about various miracles, or systematized the moral teaching of the Church. So, by the beginning of the 4th century, a very powerful layer of Christian literature had formed, which, among other things, also claimed to take a place on a par with Holy Scripture.
Ultimately, by the end of the era of persecution, the holy fathers managed to develop the so-called Canon of Holy Books - a list of apostolic creations, the origin of which is beyond doubt. With regard to the rest of the writings that claimed to take their place in the Bible, but did not take it, the Church has developed a very flexible position, which is still preserved. Based on it, the entire block of apocrypha can be divided into three groups of literary monuments.

Three types of Apocrypha

If a person who is a believer but does not know the church tradition very well is asked why the Church remembers events that are not written in the Gospel, for example, the descent of the Savior into hell or the Dormition of the Mother of God, then the question will put our interlocutor in an awkward position. People who are more knowledgeable will answer that the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, and Her childhood, and the youth of Christ, and some events after the Passion of Christ - all this is known to us thanks to the Holy Tradition, which has many forms. And that the New Testament books are just one of them. Everything that the canonical Gospels are silent about, we know from the apocrypha of the first - "positive" - ​​type, which is a written fixation of precisely that Tradition that has been kept by the Church since the day of its foundation.
There are quite a lot of such “positive”, i.e., recognized by the Church, apocrypha: about a dozen books are known that serve as a supplement to the main New Testament writings. For example, they include:
- "The Protoevangelium of James" (c. middle of the 2nd century);
- "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or the Didache" (beginning of the 2nd century);
- Gospel of Nicodemus
(c. beginning of the 4th century);
- "Shepherd" (c. II century);
- "The Legend of the Assumption of the Virgin"
(c. 5th century).

However, despite the fact that they have a fairly respectable age, the Church has not equated them with the original Gospels, the Book of Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles. And there were a number of very good reasons for that.
First, most of the apocrypha is at least a quarter of a century younger than the latest New Testament text that has come down to us - the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. That is, these writings could not have been written personally by the apostles, although, undoubtedly, on the whole they reflect the tradition that developed back in apostolic times.
Secondly, almost all church apocrypha were created by anonymous authors who deliberately signed the names of famous early Christian writers. In fact, there was nothing shameful in this - in the days of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, this was done quite often, moreover, not out of a desire to become famous or get rich (although this happened too), but simply because the works of famous authors had more chances to find their reader. However, an anonym is an anonym, and the holy fathers, who approved the biblical canon, perfectly saw where the next Pauline epistle was really, and where a later forgery, although similar in style to the original, but still having some differences. As a result, the books, the origin of which was in doubt, were not included in the Bible.
And the third reason follows logically from the second: the anonymous writings, not included by the Church in the canonical books of Scripture, do not contain anything that would not be contained in the canonical texts. As a rule, apocryphal collections are either a retelling of pious stories, or a repetition of already known phrases and thoughts expressed by the Savior and His disciples. Simply put, the Church did not see anything fundamentally new in these books and, in order to avoid tautology, did not consecrate controversial creations with its authority. In addition, there was another reason for such a seemingly biased attitude towards these texts, but more on that below. In the meantime, let us turn to two other types of apocrypha.
These are indisputably "false writings", which are of sectarian origin and refer to books that can bring confusion into the hearts of believers. Among them stand out:
- "Children's Gospel";
- "The Gospel of Thomas";
- "The Gospel of Judas";
- "Walk of the Apostle Paul through torments."
The exact date of their creation is often difficult to establish, but most often it is the turn of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first such fakes began to be created already in the 3rd century, and this process lasted until the 9th century, or even longer. The appearance of the main body of such writings is associated with an increase in the number of Christians in the era of persecution. It was a time when, on the one hand, the Church was forced to conspire and limit preaching. On the other hand, the very martyrdom of hundreds of thousands of Christians was already a powerful sermon to which God-searching hearts responded. However, having gone through the stage of primary preparation and received Baptism, many new Christians were unable to completely break with their pagan past and leave their former delusions. As a result, a situation arose when these people imposed some of their personal worldview ideas on the evangelical value system. Instead of looking at the world through the eyes of the gospel, they continued to look at the gospel itself through the eyes of pagans.
As a result of such a rethinking, a whole layer of apocrypha of the second type appeared, in which one can meet both Christ and church vocabulary, which, however, is filled with a completely different, non-evangelical content. In the books created by yesterday's pagans, there was still a place for genuine Christian motives, but they were already heavily "diluted" with purely philosophical and even occult elements.
And yet the main danger was not the first two types, but the third. This group of apocrypha is already 100% sectarian in origin. They were created at different times, by different people, but with the same goal - to confuse believers. A striking example is the Tibetan Gospel. The principle, as always, was very simple: any heretical concept was consciously clothed in Christian forms, and the works obtained in the course of such “creativity” were distributed under the names of famous apostles and saints. Of course, most often the forgery was detected in time and prevented from spreading among Christians. But there were many such cases when heretics achieved their goal, and they managed to lure some believers into their sects. At times, such apocrypha was created not by “inventing” something new, but as a result of “deep editing” of already known canonical texts. In any case, this created a serious problem, since the forgeries were often so skillful that only spiritually mature and theologically “savvy” people could detect them.
In principle, the same situation is observed now, when the authors of "sensations" offer the reader a "product", on the pages of which Christ looks a little different than in the Gospel. And then the question arises: does it really matter? After all, it would seem that these are just details. However, in fact, there is a fundamental difference between the Jesus of the Apocrypha and the Savior as the Church sees Him.

Christ Through the Eyes of the Gospel

The gospel - the true canonical gospel - reveals to us one very important truth, which is often overlooked today. Each of us knows this truth from childhood. Its essence is that the Christian is called to believe in Christ. This faith, or rather, this vocation is the main feature of Christianity, which distinguishes it from a number of other religious systems in the world.
If we try to answer the question, what is the essence of religion, then we will not be mistaken if we say that the main task facing all religious systems of the world is to give man salvation. But the whole problem is that different religions understand salvation in different ways and, accordingly, offer different ways to achieve it.
The first and most numerous group of religions believe that the essence of salvation is that after death a person receives a comfortable and joyful eternal life. In order to achieve it, it is necessary here, on earth, to fulfill a certain number of norms and regulations. These norms in different religions may not coincide. However, the principle is the same: if a person correctly fulfills these prescriptions, then eternal life after death is guaranteed to him. If a person violated these norms or did not comply at all, then he faces eternal punishment. But, no matter what fate befell a person, in any case, after death, he cannot participate in the life of the Divine. He can enjoy the beauties of the Gardens of Eden, a variety of pleasures can await him, but the path to God is closed to him. According to this group of religions, there is a huge gulf between Deity and man. And a person cannot cross this abyss either in earthly life or in the afterlife.

There is another group of religions. They believe that only God exists, and everything else is just “fragments” of the Deity, which have broken away from their Source and “forgotten” about their origin. Man in these religions is also considered a god, who is called to leave this material world and unite with the Deity, from which he once fell away. Therefore, eternal bliss is understood as the union of the soul with the Supreme Divine Absolute, while the soul itself is completely dissolved in God and the person's personality completely disappears.
But there is also Christianity. And the understanding of salvation that it offers to a person is radically different from all possible schemes that are the basis of other religions of the world.
On the one hand, Christianity in no way denies the fact that God and man are on different sides of being, that God is the Creator, and man is just a creature limited by space and time. But, on the other hand, Christianity insists that the gulf that really exists between the Creator and the creature is surmountable and that a person can really participate in the divine being of the Holy Trinity, while remaining a person and not completely dissolving in the all-consuming abysses of the Divine. In other words, in Christianity, a person is called, remaining himself and without losing his personal uniqueness, to unite with his Creator and become a god by grace.
It was to achieve this goal that Christ came into our world two thousand years ago. His earthly life, teachings, miracles are narrated by the four Gospels, which were compiled by His disciples. At first glance, the preaching of their Master is similar to the preaching of other philosophers and prophets. But this is only at first glance.
The fact is that in any other religion of the world, the personality of the teacher occupies a secondary place in relation to the teaching that he preaches. Even if the person who brings this teaching to other people is its direct author, the teaching is still in the first place, and already in the second place is its author. Of course, this does not mean that the teacher himself cannot be revered. On the contrary, the vast majority of religions treat their founders with great respect, give them high honors and even worship them. But if we imagine that for some reason the name of the founder of a particular religious tradition was forgotten or not known at all, then this fact would in no way affect the very essence of this tradition. The most important thing is what exactly this or that religion preaches. And who preaches is a question of second importance.
In Christianity, it's just the opposite. The main place in the life of a believer is occupied by Christ himself, and His teachings and commandments are a kind of guides that show the right path and help lay the right route, at the end of which stands the personality of our Divine Teacher.
I am the light of the world (); I am the way and the truth and the life (); whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me (), - these and similar words are found in the New Testament very often, and they come not only from the lips of the Savior himself, but also from His apostles, who always saw in his Master more than just a prophet or founder of a new religion. They saw in Him the Son of God and God, who came into this world to save his lost creation – man. And for two thousand years, the Church, following the Apostle Peter, at every Liturgy repeats the words that have become the main words of every Christian: “I believe, Lord, and I confess that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
So a Christian is one who believes in Christ. Or rather, the one for whom Christ is the core of his whole life. Without this most important condition, our faith turns into an empty formality, our worship into beautiful performances, and our morality into a simple game of glass beads. This is a very harsh and harsh statement, but it is true: without Christ, Christianity becomes a simple philosophy that can give a person a lot. Philosophy does not give only Christ himself. And without Christ it is impossible to be saved.

Curved mirror of apocrypha

But it is precisely this most essential thought (that there is no salvation without Christ) that is not found in any of the apocrypha of the second and third types. The main feature of any false work, one way or another related to Christianity, is the fact that in it Christ acts as a kind of technical figure and does not play, by and large, the main role. In the apocrypha, he can be anyone - a teacher, mentor, preacher, higher mind, miracle worker, or someone else. It is fundamentally impossible for Him to be the only one there - a Loving God, Crucified for the sake of saving the world.
This happens because the pagan consciousness (by the way, the materialistic one too) puts an insurmountable wall between the Creator and the creation. The fallen human mind is unable to grasp the idea of ​​God, who cares how His creation lives. In general, this approach is understandable. After all, the apocrypha of the second and third circles were born in a heretical environment, and any heresy is, first of all, the selection of any one detail from the general context and its elevation to the forefront. In other words, heresy is a shift in priorities, when the secondary becomes the main, and the main - the secondary.
Moreover, any "seductive" doctrine is born where God turns from the main goal of human existence only into a means to achieve some good. For different groups of pagans, this blessing was presented in different ways. For example, the Gnostics-pantheists, who considered the world a continuation of the divine absolute, strove for complete dissolution in the "abysses of the deity", for the complete destruction of their own personal principle and connection with the Primary Source. For these heretics, Christ was God's messenger, who, in their opinion, came only in order to communicate to people some kind of knowledge that can guarantee the elect to lead the intended goal. Other authors of the Apocrypha (for example, the numerous so-called "Infancy Gospels") have emphasized the miracles performed by the young Jesus. Such a “miracle mania” is understandable, since in the minds of the authors the image of the Messiah was closely connected not with the idea of ​​a Loving God, but with the concept of an omnipotent miracle worker who, after the apocalypse, would reward all the saved righteous.
But many of the apocrypha of the first circle (that is, books that are completely ecclesiastical in origin) have a very peculiar feature, which ultimately did not allow the holy fathers to include them in the corpus of the New Testament. These literary monuments say a lot about morality, about faith, about salvation, but very little about Christ. It is given in them as if by default. It is assumed that the reader already knows about Him and that now it is more important for him to answer the question “how to be saved” than to receive information about the Savior himself. Such an approach is in principle possible. But it can only be used by spiritually mature people.
And the New Testament is for everyone, it is universal, and therefore its books should testify about the most important thing - about God, "for us man and for our salvation, who descended from Heaven." If, however, a novice Christian immediately begins to talk about the “mechanism” of salvation, then there is a huge risk that such a believer will not see the real Savior behind all this. The true gospel speaks first and foremost about Christ. It was from such - and only from such - books that, in the end, the canonical code was compiled.

When reading in newspapers or the Internet another message that some scripture has been found somewhere again, which allegedly sheds light on the teachings of the Church and tells, for example, that Jesus grew up in Tibet, it is important to ask yourself one question: “Do I want to I believe in this Christ? If the reader of such sensations really cherishes Jesus of Nazareth as one of the teachers of righteousness, who worked miracles and called everyone to love and compassion, then, perhaps, one can continue to listen to this news. But if that Christ is dear to a person, who gave us His Church - the God and Savior of the whole universe, calling us to Himself, then it would be logical in every possible way to brush aside such things and trust the experience of the saints, who have long said their word regarding such "scriptures ”and who throughout their lives have shown loyalty to the very truths that are revealed in the canonical books of the New Testament.

The word apocrypha comes from the ancient Greek ἀπόκρῠφος, which means secret, hidden . The fact is that initially only the works of Gnosticism, which were kept secret, were called so. Today, apocrypha refers to texts that are not included in the Biblical Canon. Apocrypha, like the texts of Holy Scripture, tells about sacred persons and events. The apocryphal literature that has come down to us is wide and varied.

Go to the list of apocrypha.

Apocrypha of the New Testament.

Differences between apocryphal literature and canonical literature.

There are several principles that distinguish apocryphal literature from canonical literature.

Apocryphal literature arose long before the spread of Christianity. It is known that Ezra, after returning from the Babylonian captivity, tried to collect and categorize all the sacred tests known at that time. Ezra, and not only him, was especially selective about texts that were written under the clear influence of occult practices or pagan myths. Such texts, contrary to traditional traditions, were often deliberately destroyed. However, it is worth emphasizing that most of the Old Testament apocrypha was included in the Talmud, and Kabbalah also abounds with them.

By the way, Ezra considered traditional (canonical) 39 sacred texts, which even now form the basis of the Old Testament canon. Alexandrian theologians added 11 more books to these books, which are considered today in the Orthodox tradition. Unlike the apocryphal texts, the texts of the deuterocanonical books are used in divine services.

The issue of separating apocryphal literature from canonical literature was also very relevant for early Christianity. A new wave of apocryphal texts appeared, in which authors of different origins and different degrees of literacy, based on different goals, tried to supplement the Holy Scriptures. Do not forget that this was the time of the spread of various early Christian sects and speculation on religious topics. Many authors tried to add authority to their texts by signing themselves with the names of the apostles revered at that time. Many authors of the early Christian apocrypha believed that the official Church was hiding the true teaching from Christians and tried to correct this "mistake".

In response to the wave of appearance of a large number of new apocrypha, the official church came to the defense of the purity of the Holy Scriptures and made attempts to combat apocryphal literature by:

• compiling lists of prohibited heretical texts,
• destruction of apocryphal texts;
• refutation of false teachings and criticism of the actions of false teachers.

The pinnacle of the struggle against apocryphal literature was the statement of 27 books. The composition of the New Testament canon was fixed in the 85th Apostolic Canon.

For a long time the status of this or that apocryphal book was decided at numerous councils.

Old Testament Apocrypha.

The Old Testament apocrypha includes:

• Testaments of the twelve patriarchs,
• Apocalypses of Baruch;
• Slavic book of Enoch;
• Martyrdom of Isaiah;
• Testament of Abraham
• Testament of Job

The first Old Testament apocrypha dates back to 190-170 BC. The texts of many Old Testament apocrypha have not come down to us, many have come down only partially. Most of the Old Testament apocrypha has come down to our time only in later translations. The authorship of the Old Testament apocrypha is either not established or causes a lot of controversy.

The creation of the Old Testament apocrypha dates back to the Hellenistic era. After the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great, power was concentrated in the hands of Alexander's generals. In the course of the struggle for power, the Hellenistic states of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids arose, between which was Palestine, which became the subject of special attention of its neighbors. The rulers of the Hellenistic states constantly made political, territorial and religious claims to Palestine. This was the time of the revolts led by the Maccabees and the time of the emergence of most of the apocrypha of the Old Testament.

New Testament Apocrypha.

Most of the New Testament apocrypha were written from the 2nd to the 4th centuries - much later than the canonical ones. The New Testament Apocrypha are divided into:

Apocryphal gospels:

• The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, or, as it is also called, the Book of the origin of Blessed Mary and the childhood of the Savior;
• Gospel of James
• book of joseph the carpenter
• Tibetan Gospel
• Jesus in the temple
• Gospel of Apelles
• Gospel of the Essenes
• The Secret Gospel of Mark
• Gospel of Apelles
• Gospel of Andrew
• Gospel of Nicodemus
• Gospel of the 12 Apostles
• Gospel of the Jews
• Gospel of Judas
• Gospel of Philip
• Gospel of Thomas
• Gospel of Barnabas
• Gospel of the Egyptians

As you know, the biblical canon includes 4 gospels. There are many more apocryphal gospels - more than 50 apocryphal gospels have come down to us to one degree or another. In the apocryphal gospels, as a rule, plots develop that are slightly touched upon in the canonical gospels.

Naturally, such a genre as the gospel - the life of Jesus, was very popular. There were a large number of oral traditions, which became the basis of more and more apocryphal gospels.

Today, many Bible scholars are becoming increasingly interested in such gospels, trying to separate truth from fiction and conjecture. Interest in the apocryphal gospels, and indeed in all apocryphal literature, appeared in the 19th century.

The Church to this day rejects the value of the Apocryphal Gospels for two reasons:

1. The authors of the apocryphal gospels were not of apostolic origin,
2. The plots of the gospels, according to the church, were deliberately distorted.

Nevertheless, reading the apocryphal gospels is interesting from the point of view of acquaintance with them, as with the literary monuments of the era.

All apocryphal gospels can be divided into 2 groups:

• folklore orientation(inconceivable folklore-fantastic descriptions of events from the life of Christ).
• Ideological orientation(as a way of presenting various religious and philosophical views).

The apocryphal gospels of a folklore orientation appeared due to the fact that human nature is inherent in conjecturing what is not. So, for example, the absence in the canonical gospels of any information about the childhood of Christ led to the emergence of a large number of so-called gospels of childhood - apocryphal gospels, describing the childhood and youth of Jesus.

Apocryphal gospels of an ideological orientation appeared because of the desire of many to reinterpret Christian ideas, to make them somehow convenient for achieving a certain goal. Many authors have reinterpreted the gospel in terms of inscribing Christian ideas into a pagan worldview.

Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

• Acts of Peter and Paul
• Acts of Paul
• Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Paul
• Acts of Paul and Thecla
• Acts of Philip in Hellas
• Martyrdom of the Holy and Glorious Chief Apostle Andrew
• Acts of Barnabas
• Acts of Philip
• Acts of John
• Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian
• The act of Thomas
• Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• The Acts and Martyrdom of the Apostle Matthew
• Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddeus, one of the twelve
• Teachings of Addai the Apostle

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles tells of the preaching work of one or more of the apostles. These Acts are classified as apocrypha due to the fact that the texts are not inspired by God, and the events described are not considered reliable.

Most of the apocryphal Acts were written in Greek in the major centers of early Christianity (Alexandria, Syria, Rome), but have come down to us in translation due to the negative attitude of the early Christian church towards such literature.

Compositionally, most of the apocryphal acts are built according to the scheme:

Distribution of lots among the apostles in Jerusalem => departure to the place => apostolic journey => gospel => miracles => martyrdom.

Most of the apocryphal acts were undoubtedly written under the influence of the canonical ones. Most apocryphal Acts are characterized by a large number of revisions and revisions, which makes it almost impossible to judge the original texts of these Acts. Only the "Acts of Thomas" remained virtually unchanged.

The Apocryphal Acts are usually divided into

• Large(5 oldest (II century) and largest texts: "Acts of Peter", "Acts of Paul", "Acts of John", "Acts of Andrew" and "Acts of Thomas".)
• Small(written after 300, smaller in volume, less significant.)

Some of the apocryphal acts enjoyed authority in the early Church (The Martyrdom of Paul, Lives of the Apostles).

Apocryphal Apostolic Epistles:

• Abgar's Epistle to Christ
• Christ's message to Abgar
• Correspondence of the Apostle Paul with Seneca
• Epistle to the Laodiceans
• Epistles of Bishop Clement
• Epistle of Dionysius the Areopagite
• The Epistle of the Apostle Barnabas
• Letter of the Apostle Peter to the Apostle James
• The Message of the Twelve Apostles
• Word of St. John the Evangelist
• The Third Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians

I would like to draw attention to an interesting fact. In the New Testament, 21 books have the character of an epistle - 7 conciliar epistles and 14 epistles of the Apostle Paul. If we remember that there are 27 books in the New Testament, we will understand that the epistle genre is represented in the New Testament quite widely. However, if we are talking about apocryphal literature, it must be admitted that there are not so many apocryphal epistles.

Apocalypse:

• Apocalypse of Paul
• Revelation of Bartholomew
• Apocalypse of John
• Another Apocalypse of John

The Revelation of John the Theologian, which completes the Christian Bible, attracts special attention. The apocryphal apocalypses are no less interesting. We are used to identifying the word apocalypse with the end of the world, but initially this word is translated from Greek as “revealing”, and in particular, the disclosure of the future hidden from people.

Speaking of apocryphal apocalypses, an interesting feature should be noted. The apocryphal gospels are mostly written as imitations of the canonical gospels, the situation is similar with the apocryphal epistles, deeds, etc. Whereas the majority of the apocryphal apocalypses do not imitate the canonical Apocalypse of John. The reason lies in the fact that the genre of the apocalypse, in contrast to the gospel, deeds and epistles, developed long before Christianity. New Testament apocryphal apocalypses only continue the long tradition of the apocalyptic genre.

With some reservations (the absence of an eschatological element), the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel can be fully attributed to the apocalyptic texts. In its pure form, chapters 24-27 in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, as well as the Book of the prophet Joel, can already be called apocalyptic. It is these texts that are considered the beginning of the Jewish apocalyptic. The book of the prophet Daniel also belongs to the apocalyptic. Thus, we can conclude that the apocalyptic genre is more widely represented in the Old than in the New Testament.

However, the genre continued to develop and we know of several apocryphal New Testament apocalypses. Apocryphal apocalypses have come down to us in translations, not in the original.

Other apocrypha:

• The Secret Book of John
• The Apostle Paul's Journey Through Torment
• The Secret Book of Jacob
• Book of Thomas
• Dialogue of the Savior
• The dream of the Virgin and the legend of the veneration of 12 Fridays
• Conversation of three saints
• The legend of the exploits of Fyodor Tirinin
• The Tale of Aphrodite
• The legend of Macarius of Rome
• Tale of Twelve Fridays

Today, some apocrypha are no less popular than canonical books. In any case, to read the apocrypha means to delve into near-biblical creativity.

Apocrypha ( apocrypha secret, secret; in this case: excluded from liturgical use).

I. Apocrypha of the Old Testament

A. Emergence

A. - these are the works of late Judaism before Christ. period that arose between the OT and the NT, existing only in Greek. language (parts of the Book of Jesus, the son of Sirach, were also found in Hebrew, see I, B, 3). They are included in the Septuagint, Gr. per. VZ. When the Septuagint became the Bible of the Christians, it aroused distrust among the Jews. rabbis (after 70). Around A.D. 400 12 or 14 works contained in the Greek. and lat. VZ, but not included in the Heb. canon, became known as A. In Christ. In communities, the attitude towards A. was ambiguous until the era of the Reformation, when M. Luther, in his translation, placed A. between the OT and the NT and excluded them from the canon. In response to this, Rome. Catholic the church at the Council of Trent declared them an integral part of Scripture. Apocrypha are widespread and highly valued by Catholics and Orthodox.

B. Use of the term

Designation "A." for the above books is used only by Protestants, Catholics call them deuterocanonical, and Orthodox - non-canonical writings; in publications that arise as a result of interfaith cooperation, it was decided to designate them as "late works of the OT." The term A. Catholics apply to other works, which the Evangelists call pseudepigrapha (ie, works published under false names). They were published under pseudonyms, and the authorship was always attributed to Ph.D. of the great men of the OT. A. are later works than the "late writings of the OT", and always have the character of legends with a predominantly apocalyptic. content (for example, the Dormition of Moses; the Martyrdom of Isaiah; the Book of Enoch, specifically quoted in; Psalms of Solomon, Apocalypse of Baruch; Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, etc.).

C. Apocrypha in modern editions of the Bible

Separate editions of the Bible offer some set of A., borrowed from the Septuagint. Luther wrote, "These are those books which do not belong to the Holy Scriptures, but are still useful and good to read." Some of these books are still used in worship today. This applies even to pseudepigrapha (eg, cf. Enoch 10 et seq.; cf. Usp. Moses). Many things in A. will seem strange to the reader of the Bible; on the other hand, he will be struck by the similarity of many sayings with the Old Testament. Historians can draw from some of the Apocryphal books valuable information about the life of the Jews, their way of thinking, about the forms of their religiosity in the period between the OT and the NT. Some of these books may not represent ist. interest, since the events set forth in them are taken outside the historical context, but they can say a lot about the religious philosopher. thoughts of history. period, previous NZ.

1) Less significant (with the exception of the Book of Tobit) are works, the peculiarity of which is the embellishment of well-known events in the Bible. history or investment defined. bibl. characters in the covers of the legend: Book Judith, a song of praise of God-fearing Judas. a widow ready to sacrifice her feminine honor for the sake of the temple and her people; Book Tobit, a wonderful, naive story about two young people who, despite the hardest blows of fate, do not deviate from their faith, and the reward for piety is not long in coming. The book gives a vivid picture of the life of Judas. diaspora in the East around 200 BC. She apparently appeared at this time; the original language was probably Aramaic. Susanna and Daniel, About the Babylonian Villa, About the Babylonian Dragon- three stories about Daniel. Two of them are simultaneously pamphlets ridiculing idolatry.

2) The above-mentioned stories about Daniel form additions to the canon in the Septuagint. Book of St. Daniel, preceding it or following immediately after it; further in the Book of St. Daniel are found Azaria's Prayer And Song of the Three Youths in a fiery furnace. The Septuagint contains a number of additions and insertions to the text of the OT, of little credibility, but of great value due to their ext. connection with the Bible. Book Esther contains six inserts of different content (following before and after ; ; ; ; ). Prayer of Manasseh is an appendix to et seq.

3) Three works related to or approaching the books of wisdom are probably worthy of special attention: Book baruch, excl. her entry, doubtful from the East. t.zr., is a collection of prayers of repentance, mournful and comfort. songs, and edification. verses similar in style to those of the Old Testament. The same applies to the form and content of the so-called. The Epistles of Jeremiah, which is found in the Vulgate and in Luther as the 6th chapter of the Book of Baruch. Written at a high level Book Jesus son of Sirach. It is distinguished by the wealth of lit. forms, it contains numerous guides for practical and spiritual life and ends with heartfelt praise to the forefathers of Israel from Enoch to Nehemiah. However, this is the only book of its kind whose author is known to us. This is Jesus, the son of Sirach, who wrote it c. 190 B.C. in Heb. language (since 1896, more than two-thirds of the text of this book has been found among Hebrew manuscripts). His grandson about 132 B.C. translated the book into Greek. lang. (Sir, preface; et seq.). in addition, the preface to this work indicates the time until which the Old Testament canon existed in three parts. Book Wisdom of Solomon(it could not have been written by Solomon!) is an attempt, on the one hand, to reconcile the Greek-Hellenistic. thinking with the Jewish, and on the other hand, to dissociate from it. It was written to strengthen the faith of Judas. communities because of the danger of paganisation. Wisdom, as the educated Greeks understood it, and justice, as the devout Jews thought of it, under the sign of Judaism, enter into an alliance with each other in order to resist godlessness and idolatry; in this somewhat artificial way Judaism and Hellenism become allies in the struggle against a common enemy. The rulers of the earth are called to realize the thus understood. wisdom. Then follows a broad review of the workings of wisdom in St. history, from and up to the time of the possession of the promised land.

4) Two prose. works: Maccabees books. 1 Mack may be of value to those interested in history as it introduces history. the situation in Palestine during the struggle of the Maccabees against the Sirs. King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 BC, cf.; ⇒ Antichrist, II, 1). This period is important for understanding political, ethnic. and religious balance of power in Palestine by the time of Jesus and the NT. The first part of 2 Mack, which is probably written by another author, reflects the same situation. But ist. accents noticeably give way to theological ones in it. It covers a shorter period than the first, and in contrast to it, it has pronounced features of legend-making. The book contains rich material for getting acquainted with the way of life and thinking of the Pharisees, which has already taken stable forms. Thus, the connection with the NZ lies on the surface here. (Compare ⇒ Maccabees). All A., which was mentioned here, arose in the period of ca. from 200 B.C. to A.D. 100 Most of them were originally written in Greek. language, and the rest translated into Greek. from Heb. or aram. [The above A. are contained in the Septuagint, the Vulgate and the Slavic Bible. In addition to them, such books as the Second Book of Ezra, the Third Book of Maccabees (included in the Septuagint and the Slavic Bible) are also known; The third book of Ezra (in the Slavic Bible and the Vulgate); The fourth book of Maccabees (in the appendix to the Septuagint). - Note. ed.]

II. Apocrypha of the New Testament

1) It is difficult to draw a clear distinction between A.'s materials. Let us agree to designate as New Testament A. those books that, in their claims and characteristics, are close to the books included in the New Testament. Most of them are published under the names of the apostles (pseudo-epigraphs), but are not included in the canon (the works of the so-called “men of the apostles” should be distinguished from them, see below). The time of occurrence of pseudepigraphs falls on the II-IV centuries. according to R.H.

2) Distinguish trace. categories of New Testament A.: apocryphal. gospels, which in their content are more or less connected with the personalities of Jesus or His parents and quote those sayings of Jesus that are not attested by the canon. gospels. A number of such gospels are known to us by their titles (for example, Gospel of the Jews, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, gospel of truth). Some of them are practically lost (with the exception of quotations found in the writings of the Church Fathers); however, in the latest period, a number of A. were rediscovered (for example, in Nag Hammadi). There were many apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. They relate. depict in detail the life and ministry of the apostles and their disciples (for example, Peter, Paul, Thomas, Andrew, etc.). In most cases they are of a later origin than the Apocryphal. gospels, and have also survived only in fragments. Only a few of the apocryphal messages have reached our time. One such epistle is even attributed to Christ, three to Paul, one to Barnabas (in the form of epistles, there are also writings of the "Men of the Apostles", see below). Apocryphal apocalypses (revelations) were attributed to Peter, Paul, Thomas, Stephen, John, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, among others. A. NZ practically do not contain a reliable source. material; with A. VZ the situation is different. In any case, they allow you to get acquainted with the religious culture of the Judeo-Christ. in the period II-IV centuries. according to R.H. From the New Testament A. should be distinguished the writings of the "men of the apostles", i.e. works of the disciples of the apostles, dating from the end of the 1st century. and II century. according to R.H. (appearing partly in parallel with the last books of the NT), which are mentioned here only because they are sometimes classified as A. These are primarily epistles and apologetics. treatises from which one can learn about the relationship between the churches in the 2nd century. and who are sufficiently reliable in their information. ⇒

Apocrypha (Greek - secret, hidden) - works of Jewish and early Christian literature, compiled in imitation of the books of Holy Scripture about sacred persons and events, mostly on behalf of the characters of Holy Scripture, not recognized by the Church as canonical.

The Church recognizes only four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You can find them in any edition of the Bible.

What is Apocrypha? Those apocrypha, which will now be discussed, claim the genre of the Gospel, but the Church either rejects their apostolic origin, or considers that their content has been significantly distorted. Therefore, the Apocrypha are not included in the Biblical canon (simply speaking, in the Bible) and are not considered a spiritual and religious guide to life, but rather literary monuments of the era when the first generations of Christians began to come into contact with the pagan world.

The main apocryphal texts appear much later than the canonical New Testament books: from the 2nd to the 4th century - all researchers today agree with this fundamental fact, regardless of religious beliefs.

All New Testament apocryphal books can be divided into two large groups: the first is a kind of folklore, i.e. apocrypha, in an unthinkable-fantastic form, tells about “events” from the life of Christ, which are not in the canonical Gospels. And the second is the "ideological" apocrypha, which arose as a result of the desire of various mystical and philosophical groups to use the outline of the gospel history to present their religious and philosophical views. First of all, this applies to the Gnostics (from the Greek "gnosis" - knowledge), whose teaching is an attempt by paganism to rethink Christianity in its own way. Many modern sectarians who are trying to write their own "gospel" do the same.

One of the main reasons for the appearance of the apocryphal writings of the first, "folklore" group is natural human curiosity. These apocrypha are addressed to those segments from the earthly life of Christ that are not described in the New Testament, or are described little. This is how the "gospels" appear, telling in detail about the childhood of the Savior. In form and style, the Apocrypha are far inferior to the rich, figurative language of the Bible. By the way, the very fact of the story in the apocryphal writings about events that are not covered in the Bible once again confirms that the apocrypha were written later than the canonical Gospels - the authors of the apocrypha speculated about what the Gospel is silent about. According to researchers, of the apocrypha that have come down to us, not one was written earlier than 100 A.D. (the writing of the body of New Testament books had already been completed by that time).

A characteristic feature of the apocryphal writings of this type is their fantastic nature: the authors often gave free rein to their imagination, without thinking in the least about how their fantasy correlates with the truth. The miracles performed by Christ in these books are striking in their senselessness (the boy Jesus collects water in a puddle, makes it clean and begins to manage it with one word), or cruelty (a boy who sprinkled water from a puddle with a vine, "Jesus" calls "a worthless, godless fool ”, and then tells him that he will dry up like a tree, which immediately happens). All this is very different from the main motive of the gospel miracles of Christ - love. The reason for the appearance of apocryphal texts of the second, "ideological" group was the desire to reinterpret Christianity in the stereotypes of pagan thought. The gospel names, motifs and ideas became only an excuse for the retelling of completely different myths: the pagan content began to be clothed in Christian forms.

With all the variety and variety of Gnostic teachings, almost all of them proceeded from one idea, which affirmed the sinfulness of the material world. They considered only the Spirit to be the creation of God. Naturally, such a tradition assumed and offered a fundamentally different reading of the gospel story. So, for example, in the Gnostic Passion Gospels one can read that Christ, in general, did not suffer on the cross. It only seemed so, since He, in principle, could not suffer, since He did not even have flesh, it also only seemed! God cannot have material flesh.

Of course, the apocryphal literature is so wide and varied that it is not so easy to bring it to some common denominator. Moreover, individual apocryphal stories are perceived as an addition to the compressed gospel narrative and have never been rejected by the Church (for example, the story of the parents of the Virgin Mary, her entry into the temple, the story of Christ's descent into hell, etc.). But the paradox of the Apocrypha lies in the fact that, for all their claims to mystery, the truly mysterious Christian books are the books of the Bible. Revealing the Secrets of the Bible requires spiritual effort and consists in cleansing the heart, and not in fantastic descriptions of how Christ first molds birds from clay, and then revives them, and they fly away (“The Gospel of Childhood”).

According to the modern Indologist and religious scholar V. K. Shokhin, the Apocrypha differ fundamentally from the Biblical Gospels precisely in the presentation of material, in the way of describing certain events: the apocryphal approach is more reminiscent of the journalistic techniques of the Vremechko program than a serious story about secret knowledge. In order to be convinced of this, it is enough to read and compare the Apocrypha and the Gospels. After that, by the way, another important point becomes obvious - this is the divine inspiration of the Gospels. In the Orthodox Church, it is generally accepted that, although the New Testament books were written by people (which is confirmed by the peculiarities of the author's style), these people wrote being moved by the Holy Spirit. It is this leading of the Holy Spirit that creates the authentic gospels, which the Church unmistakably collects into the biblical canon over time.

Vladimir Legoyda

Apocrypha of the Old Believers

Apocrypha

Apocrypha (from ancient Greek - ἀπόκρῠφος - hidden, secret, secret) - works not included in the biblical canon, these are texts of late Jewish and early Christian literature. Apocrypha are divided into New Testament and Old Testament. The very concept of "apocrypha" came from the works of texts of Gnosticism, the Gnostics sought to keep their teachings secret, and we Protestants do not support it at all. But later, the term "apocrypha" by no one knows who was referred to the texts and messages of early Christian literature, namely, various gospels, messages, revelations, not recognized as "inspired" by the Christian church of that time and not included in the biblical canon (canon is a collection or set of books Bibles recognized by the Church of that time as divinely inspired). The Old Testament apocrypha is also not accepted by the Jewish synagogue.

Conventionally, in accordance with the centuries-old, often unwritten church practice, all Apocrypha can be divided into 3 main groups:

1) Non-canonical or deuterocanonical books, mostly accepted by the Russian Orthodox Church, and in principle not strongly contested by other Christian denominations, such as Protestants. These are books -

• The Second Book of Ezra (2 Esdras)
• The Third Book of Ezra (3 Ezra)
• Book of Tobit (Tov)
• Book of Judith (Judith)
• The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (Prem Sol)
• Book of Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach (Sirach)
• The Epistle of Jeremiah (Ep. Jer)
• The Book of the Prophet Baruch (Bar)
• First Book of Maccabees (1 Macca)
• Second Book of Maccabees (2 Macc)
• Third Book of Maccabees (3 Macc)

In addition, some passages in the canonical books of the Septuagint are considered non-canonical texts (non-canonical additions), such as:

• a place in the book of Esther that is not indicated by an account of the verses of the Greek and Slavic Bible;
• Manasseh's prayer at the end of 2 Chronicles;
• the song of the three youths (Dan. 3:24-90);
• the story of Susanna (Dan. 13);
• the story of Vila and the Dragon (Dan. 14).

2) Non-canonical apocrypha, thematically, structurally and plot similar to canonical texts. This includes most of the apocrypha of the Old Testament and New Testament. On our website, we have just collected these books.

3) anticanonical apocrypha; such are considered mainly works that reflect elements of heretical (gnostic, dualistic) teachings. Apocryphal rules, prayers are distinguished into a separate group. The Protestant Church does not accept these apocrypha, it considers this a satanic heresy.

After the establishment of the biblical canon by the Council of Laodicea in 369, non-canonical apocrypha were rejected by the Church because of the many details of the biblical story, which are not always reliable from her point of view. Apocrypha were entered into special indexes approved by church decrees, i.e., lists of texts that did not allow them to be read and distributed among Christians, and therefore the apocrypha were called "renounced writings" or "renounced, false books", here they are included as apocrypha, which are on our website, and others that we have not yet dealt with, see the next paragraph.

In parallel, indexes of "true" books were also compiled. The first such index was compiled by Eusebius (263-340) on behalf of the imp. Constantine the Great (274-337), where 3 categories of writings were singled out - 1) canonical books, 2) allowed to read and 3) "renounced". 496 dates back to the list of "true and false" writings, approved by the decree of Pope Gelasius I "Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis". It lists 27 canonical books of the NT and provides a list of "renounced" books (Torment of St. Thekla and Paul, Kirik and Julitta, St. George, Names of Angels, Names of Demons, book Physiologist, Visions of St. Stephen, Thomas, Paul, the gospel of Job , the writings of Tertullian, etc.).