ACTS OF CHRIST, SPURIOUS. Several sayings attributed to our Lord, and alleged to be handed down by tradition, may be included under this head, as they are supposed by some learned men to have been derived from histories which are no longer in existence. As explanatory of our mean ing it will suffice to refer to the beautiful sentiment cited by St. Paul (Acts xx. 35), Matcapt6p Isrt 8036pat 3) Xaypcivew, to which the term apo cryphal has been sometimes applied, inasmuch as it is not contained in any of the written biographies of our Lord. This term is so applied by M. Gaussen of Geneva, in his Theopneustia (English translation, Bagster, 1842). The learned Heinsius is of opinion that the passage is taken from some lost apocryphal book, such as that entitled, in the Recognitions of Clement, `the Book of the Sayings of Christ,' or the pretended Constitutions of the Apostles. Others, however, conceive that the apostle, in Acts xx. 35, does not refer to any one saying of our Saviour's in particular, but that he deduced Christ's sentiments on this head from several of his sayings and parables (see Matt. xix. 2r ; xxv.; and Luke xvi. 9). But the probability is that St. Paul received this passage by tradition from the other apostles.
There is also a saying ascribed to Christ to be found in the Epistle of Banzabas, a work at least of the second century : Let us resist all iniquity, and hate it ;' and again, So they who would see me, and lay hold on my kingdom, must receive me through much suffering and tribulation : but it is not improbable that these passages contain merely an illusion to some of our Lord's discourses.
Clemens Romanus, the third bishop of Rome after St. Peter (or the writer who passes under the name of Clement), in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, ascribes the following saying to Christ : Though ye should be united to me in my bosom, and yet do not keep my commandments, I will reject you, and say, Depart from me, I know not whence ye are, ye workers of iniquity.' This pas sage seems evidently to be taken from St. Luke's gospel, xiii. 25, 26, 27.
There are many similar passages, which several eminent writers, such as Grabe, Mill, and Fabri cius, have considered as derived from apocryphal gospels, but which seem with greater probability to be nothing more than loose quotations from the Scriptures, which were very common among the apostolical Fathers.
There is a saying of Christ's, cited by Clement in the same epistle, which is found in the apocry phal gospel of the Egyptians The Lord, being asked when his kingdom should come, replied, When two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female neither male nor female.' [GOSPELS, APO CRYPHAL.] We may here mention that the genuineness of the Second Epistle of Clement is itself disputed, and is rejected by Eusebius, Jerome, and others ; at least Eusebius says of it, We know not that this is as highly approved of as the former, or that it has been in use with the ancients' (Hist. Eerier. iii. 38, Cruse's translation, 1842).
Eusebius, in the last chapter of the same book, states that Papias, a companion of the apostles, gives another history of a woman who had been accused of many sins before the Lord, which is also contained in the Gospel according to the Nazarenes.' As this latter work is lost, it is doubt ful to what woman the history refers. Some sup pose it alludes to the history of the woman taken in adultery ; others, to the woman of Samaria. There are two discourses ascribed to Christ by Papias, preserved in Irenmus (Adoersus Haws. v. 33), relating to the doctrine of the Millennium, of which Papias appears to have been the first propa gator. Dr. Grabe has defended the truth of these traditions, but the discourses themselves are un worthy of our blessed Lord.
There is a saying ascribed to Chnst by Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, which has been supposed by Dr. Cave to have been taken from the Gospel of the Nazarenes. Mr. Jones conceives it to have been an allusion to a passage in the prophet Ezekiel. The same Father furnishes us with an apocryphal history of Christ's baptism, in which it is asserted that ' a fire was kindled in Jordan.' He also acquaints us that Christ worked, when he was on earth, at the trade of a carpenter, making ploughs and yokes for oxen.