APOCRYPHA, or ArocitYru•L WRITINGS. The word originally meant secret or concealed, and was rendered 'current by the Jews of Alexandria. the earliest churches, it was applied with very different significations to a variety of writings. Sometimes it was given to those whose authorship and original form were unknown; sometimes to writings containing a hidden meaning; sometimes to those whose public use was not thought advisable. In this last signification, it has been customary, since the time of Jerome, to apply the term to a number of writings which the Septuagint had circulated amongst the Christians, and which were sometimes considered as an appendage to the Old Testament, and sometimes as a portion of it. The Greek church, at the council of Laodicea (360 A.D.), excluded them from the canon; the Latin church, on the other hand, always highly favored them; and finally the council of Trent (1545-63) placed them on an equality with the rest of the Old Testament. The church of England uses them in part for edification, but not for the "establishment of doctrine." All other Protestant churches in England and America reject their use in public worship. But it was once customary to bind up the A. between the authorized versions of the Old and New Testaments, though this has now ceased, and, as a consequence, this curious, interest ing, and instructi vepart of Jewish literature is now known only to scholars. The Old Testa ment A. consists of 14 books: 1. First Esdras (q.v.); 2. Second Esdras (q.v.); 3. Tobit (q.v.); 4. Judith (q. v. ); 5. The parts of Esther not found in Hebrew or Chaldee; G. The Wisdom of Solomon; 7. The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus (q.v.); 8. Baruch (q.v.); 9. The Song of the Three Holy Children; 10. The History of Susanna; 11. The II is tory of the Destruction of 13e1 and the Dragon (q.v.); 12. The Prayer of Manasses, Ring of Judah (see MANASsNII); 13. First Maccabees (q.v.); 14. Second Maccabees (q.v.). The precise origin of all of these writings cannot be ascertained. It is enough to state here that some bear traces of a Palestinian, others of an Egypto-Alexandrine, and others, again, of a Chaldnico-Persian origin or influence. Most, if not all, bear internal evidence of having been composed in the 1st and 2d c. B.C.
The A. of the New Testament may be arranged under three heads. 1. The writings comprising the Apocryphal Gospels, which consist of 22 separate documents, 10 in Greek and 12 in Latin. They concern themselves with the history of Joseph, and of the Virgin
Mary befoie the birth of Christ, with the infancy of Christ, and with the history of Pilate. The most important of the set are the Protevangelium of James, the Gospel of Thomas, am] the Acts qf Pilate, which ate perhaps the original of all the apocryphal tra ditions. That many of the stories found in these were current in the 2d. c., is abundantly proved, but we have no evidence that any of the books known as Apocryphal gospels were then in existence,or are older than the 4th century. 2. The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, consisting of 13 documents originally written in Greek, but found also in a Latin compila tion probably of the 6th century. They are distinguished from the Apocryphal gospels by having less of miracle and more of didactic discourse. The more important of the collection are 71te Acts of Peter and Paul, The Acts of Barnabas, 2 he Acts of Philip, 7hc Acts of Andrew, The Acts of Bartholomew, and The Acts of John,. It is difficult to ascertain their age. Some are probably of earlier date than the Apocryphal gspoels, but the orizinal MSS. are lost, and we only possess them in late transcripts of the middle ages. 3. The Apoc ryphal Apocalypses, consisting of 7 documents, 4 of which arc called apocalypses by their authors. There is great and variety in the MSS. That called The Apoc alypse of Moses relates rather to the Old Testament than to the New; so does The Apoc alypse of Esdras, which is a weak imitation of the fourth book of Esdras. The others are the Apocalypse of _Paul, The Apocalypse of John, and The Assumption of Mary in three forms. These, too, only exist in late MSS. of the middle ages, and it is, of course, not quite certain that they are the same in form as the works bearing the same name referred to in the writings of the fathers.
The New Testament A. is not without interest or instruction for us. It throws a flood of light upon the workings of the early Christian consciousness and modes of thought, and it also enables us to appreciate the vast superiority of those Scriptures which have obtained canonical authority.—See Tisehendorrs Prolegomena to the Apocryphal literature of the New Testament (Leipsic, 1873), and Clark's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 16 (Edinburgh, 1870).