They are, however, regarded by most as originally not of an earlier date than the second century, and as containing interpolations which betray the fourth or fifth : they can, therefore, only be considered as evidence of the practice of the Church at the period when they were written. They have generally been appealed to by the learned as having preserved the traditions of the age immediately succeeding the apostolic ; and, from the remarkable coincidence which is observable in the most essential parts of the so-called Apostolic Liturgies, it is by no means improbable that, notwithstanding their interpola tions, they contain the leading portions of the most ancient Christian forms of worship.
Most of the apocryphal Gospels and Acts noticed by the fathers, and condemned in the catalogue of Gelasius, which are generally thought to have been the fictions of heretics in the second century, have long since fallen into oblivion. Of those which remain, although some have been considered by learned men as genuine works of the apostolic age, yet the greater part are universally rejected as spurious, and as written in the second and third centuries. A few are, with great appear ance of probability, assigned to Leucius Clarinus, supposed to be the same with Leontius and Seleucus, who was notorious for similar forgeries at the end of the third century. The authorship of the Epistle of Baynabas is still a matter of dispute ; and there appears but too much reason to believe that there existed grounds for the charge made by Celsus against the early Christians, that they had interpolated or forged the ancient Sibylline Oracles.
In the letter of Pope Innocent I. to St. Exupere, bishop of Toulouse, written about the year after giving a catalogue of the books forming the canon of Scripture (which includes five books of Solomon, Tobit, and two books of Maccabees), he observes :— ' But the others, which are written under the name of Matthias, or of James the Less, or those which were written by one Leucius under the name of Peter and John, or those under the name of Andrew by Xenocheris and Leonidas the philosopher, or under the name of Thomas ; or if there be any others, you must know that they are not only to be rejected, hut condemned.' These sentiments were afterwards confirmed by the Roman Council of seventy bishops, held under Pope Gelasius, in 494, in the acts of which there is a long list of apocryphal Gospels and Acts, the greater part of which are supposed to have perished. The acts of this council, however, are not generally considered to be genuine.
The following are the principal spurious apocry phal books of the Old Testament, which have descended to our times. The greater number of
them can scarcely be considered as properly be longing to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, as they have been most probably written since the Christian era, and not before the second century : Third and fourth Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the apocryphal book of Elias the Prophet, the third, fourth, and fifth books of Maccabees (received by the Greek Church), the Ascension of Isaiah, the Assumption of Moses, with a few others.
The best accounts of the apocryphal books will be found in Fabricii Codex Psezza'epigraphus V.T. Hamburgh and Leipzig, 1713 and 1741, and Codex Apocryphus N. T., Hamburg, 1713-1722; Aucta Godless Apocryphi N. T. Fabriciani, edidit And. Birch, Copenhagen, 1804. A New and Full Method of Settling the Canon of the N. T., by the Rev. Jeremiah Jones, Oxford, 1726—last edition, Oxford, 1827. Du Pin, Prolegomena, Amst. 17o1, and Canon of the Old and New Testaments, Lon don, 1700; and especially Codex Apocryphus N.T., e libris ineditis maxim? Gallicanis, Germanicis, et collectus, recensitus, notisque et prolegomenis illustrates, opera et studio T. C. Thilo, torn. i. Lips. 183z, Svo; the remaining two volumes are not yet published. Vol. i. contains : I. The history of Joseph the Carpenter, Arab. and Lat. 2. The Gospel of the Infancy. 3. The Prote vangelion of James, and the Gospel of Thomas the Israelite, Greek and Lat. 4. The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, and the History of the Nativity of Mary and the Saviour, Lat. 5. The Gospel of Marcion, collected by Dr. Hahn, from ancient Greek MSS. 6. The Gospel of Nicodemus, Gr. and Lat. 7. Apprehension and Death of Pilate, Gr. S. The mutilated and altered Gospel of St. John, preserved in the archives of the Templars of St. John of Jerusalem in Paris, with Griesbach's text. 9. An Apocryphal Book of the Apostle John, Lat. See also Wilson, The Books of the Apocrypha with critical and Historical Observations, etc., Edinb. iSoi ; Eichhorn, Einleitung in die Apok. Schrifien. des A. T., Leipz. 1795 ; H. Ed. Apel, Libri Vet. Test. Apoc. Grace, Lips. 1837; Fritzsche and Grimm, Kurzgef. Exeget. Hana'buch zu d. Apobyphen d. A. T. ; Tischendorf—i. De Evangeliorum Apocryphorum origine et use, Hague, r851. 2. Acta Apocrypha ex xxx. antique Codd. Grads vel nunc prim um end/ vel seczozduni atque enzena'atizes edidit. Lips. 1852. 3. Evangelia Apo crypha adhibitis codd. Growls et Latinis nunc trimunt consultis, edit. Lips. 1853. [Acrs, GOSPELS, EPISTLES, and REVELATIONS, Spurious; CANON.]—W. W.