Apocrypha(from the Greek ἀπό-κρῠφος - secret, hidden; (later) false) – 1) monuments of ancient Jewish religious writing, compiled, formally, in the image of the Holy Books Old Testament, but were not such and were not included in the Holy Canon; 2) monuments of early pseudo-Christian writing, compiled on behalf of eyewitnesses or participants in evangelical events or events early history Churches that were presented as true and revered as such in certain religious circles, but were rejected by the Ecumenical Church as false; 3) (in the interpretation of Protestants) non-canonical Books that are part of the Bible used in Orthodoxy.
What are apocrypha? Those apocrypha, which will now be discussed, claim to be the genre of the Gospel, but the Church either rejects their apostolic origin or believes that their content has been significantly distorted. Therefore, the Apocrypha is not included in (to put it simply, in the Bible) and is 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 centuries - 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, that is, apocrypha, in an unimaginably fantastic form, telling about “events” from the life of Christ that 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 (according to Deacon Andrei Kuraev, many modern sectarians are doing the same thing, trying to write their own “gospel”) .
One of the main reasons for the appearance of 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 is very 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 remains silent about. According to researchers, of the apocrypha that have reached us, not a single one was written earlier than 100 A.D. (the writing of the corpus of New Testament books was already completed by that time).
A characteristic feature of apocryphal writings of this type is their fantastic nature: the authors often gave free rein to their imagination, without thinking at all about how their fantasy correlates with the truth. The miracles performed by Christ in these books are striking in their meaninglessness (the boy Jesus collects water from a puddle, makes it clean and begins to control it with one word), or cruelty (the boy who sprinkled water from the puddle with a vine is called “a worthless, godless fool” by “Jesus” ”, 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. Gospel names, motifs and ideas became only a pretext for the retelling of completely different myths: 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 God's creation. Naturally, such a tradition assumed and offered a fundamentally different reading of the Gospel story. So, for example, in the Gnostic “Gospels of the Passion” you 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 possess material flesh.
Of course, apocryphal literature is so wide and varied that it is not so easy to reduce it to some common denominator. Moreover, individual apocryphal stories are perceived as additions to the condensed gospel narrative and have never been rejected by the Church (for example, the story of the parents of the Virgin Mary, her introduction into the temple, the story of Christ’s descent into hell, etc.). But the paradox of the apocrypha is that, for all their claims to mystery, the truly mysterious Christian books are the biblical books. Revealing the Mystery of the Bible requires spiritual effort and consists of purifying the heart, and not in fantastic descriptions of how Christ first sculpts birds from clay, and then brings them to life, and they fly away (“The Gospel of Childhood”). According to the modern Indologist and religious scholar V.K. Shokhin, the apocrypha is fundamentally different 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 which, by the way, one more thing becomes obvious important point– this is the inspiration of the Gospels. In the Orthodox Church it is generally accepted that, although New Testament books and 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 guidance of the Holy Spirit that creates the authentic Gospels, which over time are unerringly collected into the biblical canon.
In general, we can fully agree with the assessment given to apocryphal literature by Archpriest Alexander Men: “When you and I, out of curiosity or in search of some truly hidden knowledge, some kind of secret Christianity (nowadays they often talk about esoteric Christianity), we begin to turn to this literature , we must remember that this literature is only a monument, only a testimony of human searches. It contains wanderings and delusions, questions and human mistakes. And the Gospel contains the answer. The answer is clear. An answer not intended for a narrow audience of the elite, which presupposes for the elite any person who has a sincere desire to comprehend the truth, whose heart is open to it.”
Literature:
1. Kuraev Andrey, deacon.
- Tradition. Dogma. Rite. Moscow - Klin: Publishing house of the Brotherhood of St. Tikhon. 1995;
– Satanism for the intelligentsia. T. 2. Christianity without the occult. Moscow: Moscow courtyard of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, Father's House. 1997. pp. 75-79.
2. Sventsitskaya I. Apocryphal Gospels. M.: Priscels, 1996.
3. Shokhin V.K. Ancient India in the culture of Rus'. M.: Science. 1988. pp. 30-36 (“Indian religions and apocrypha”).
Apocrypha among 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. The Apocrypha is divided into New Testament and Old Testament. The very concept of “apocrypha” came from the works of Gnosticism texts, the Gnostics sought to keep their teaching secret, and we, Protestants, do not support it at all. But later, the term “apocrypha”, unknown by whom, was attributed to the texts and messages of early Christian literature, namely, various gospels, messages, revelations, which were not recognized as “inspired” by the Christian church of that time and were not included in the biblical canon (a 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 centuries-old, often unwritten church practice, all apocrypha can be divided into 3 main groups:
1) Non-canonical or deuterocanonical books, mainly accepted by Russian Orthodox Church, and in principle not strongly disputed by others Christian denominations, for example Protestants. These are books -
- Second Book of Ezra (2 Rides)
- Third Book of Ezra (3 Rides)
- Book of Tobit (Tob)
- Book of Judith (Judith)
- Book of Wisdom of Solomon (Prem Sol)
- Book of Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach (Sirach)
- The Epistle of Jeremiah (Post Jeremiah)
- Book of the Prophet Baruch (Var)
- First Book of Maccabees (1 Macc)
- 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 not indicated by the verse count of the Greek and Slavic Bibles;
- Manasseh's prayer at the end of 2 Chronicles;
- song of the three youths (Dan. 3:24-90);
- the story of Susanna (Dan. 13);
- the story of Bel and the Dragon (Dan. 14).
2) Non-canonical apocrypha, thematically, structurally and plot-wise similar to canonical texts. This includes most of the Old Testament and New Testament apocrypha. We have collected these books on our website.
3) anti-canonical apocrypha; These are considered mainly works that reflect elements of heretical (gnostic, dualistic) teachings. Apocryphal rules and prayers are included in a separate group. The Protestant Church does not accept these apocrypha; it considers it a satanic heresy.
After the establishment of the biblical canon by the Council of Laodicea in 369, non-canonical apocrypha was rejected by the Church due to the many details of biblical history that were not always reliable from its point of view. The apocrypha were included in special indices 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 received the name “renounced scriptures” or “renounced, false books,” which are included here as apocrypha, which there are on our website, as well as others that we have not dealt with yet, see the next paragraph.
At the same time, indexes of “true” books were also compiled. The first such index was compiled by Eusebius (263-340) on behalf of the emperor. Constantine the Great (274-337), where 3 categories of works were identified - 1) canonical books, 2) allowed for reading and 3) “renounced”. The year 496 dates back to the list of “true and false” scriptures, 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 (The Torment of St. Thecla and Paul, Cyric and Julitta, St. George, Names of Angels, Names of Demons, the book of Physiologist, Visions of St. Stephen, Thomas, Paul, Gospel of Job , works of Tertulian, etc.).
Apocrypha
[Apocrypha= intimate, secret; in this case: excluded from liturgical use]
A. APPEARANCE
The Apocrypha are the works of late Judaism of the pre-Christian period, which arose between the OT and NT, existing only in Greek(parts of the Book of Jesus, son of Sirach, were also discovered in Hebrew, see I, B, 3). They are included in the Septuagint, Greek translation VZ. When the Septuagint became the Bible of Christians, it was distrusted by the Jewish rabbis (after 70). Around 400 A.D. The 12 or 14 works contained in the Greek and Latin OT, but not included in the Jewish canon, came to be called the Apocrypha. In Christian communities, attitudes towards the apocrypha were ambiguous until the era of the Reformation, when Martin Luther, in his translation, placed the apocrypha between the OT and NT and excluded them from the canon. In response to this Rom. Catholic Church at the Council of Trent declared them an integral part of Scripture. The Apocrypha is widespread and highly valued by Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
B. USAGE OF THE TERMThe designation “apocrypha” for the above-mentioned books is used only by Protestants, Catholics call them deuterocanonical, and Orthodox call them 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.” Catholics apply the term apocrypha to other works, which the evangelists call pseudepigrapha (that is, works published under other people's names). They were published under pseudonyms, and the authorship was always attributed to one of the great men of the Old Testament. The Apocrypha are later works than the "late writings of the OT" and are always in the nature of legends with a predominantly apocalyptic content (for example, the Dormition of Moses; the Martyrdom of Isaiah; the Book of Enoch, specifically quoted in Jude 1:14; the Psalms of Solomon, the Apocalypse of Baruch; the Testament of the Twelve patriarchs and others).
B. APOCRYPHAL IN MODERN EDITIONS OF THE BIBLESome editions of the Bible offer a certain set of apocrypha 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 (for example, Jude 1:4, compare Enoch 10:4 and following; Jude 1:9, compare with the Dormition of Moses). To the reader of the Bible, much in the apocrypha will seem strange; on the other hand, he will be struck by the similarity of many sayings with the Old Testament. Historians can glean from some apocryphal books valuable information about the life of the Jews, their way of thinking, and the forms of their religiosity in the period between the OT and NT. Some of these books may not be of true interest, since the events described in them are taken out of historical context, but they can say a lot about religious and philosophical thought historical period, precede NC.
1)
Less significant (with the exception of the Book of Tobit) are works whose feature is embellishment famous events biblical history or dressing certain biblical characters in the veil of legend: Book Judith, song of praise a God-fearing Jewish 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 clear picture of the life of the Jewish diaspora in the East around 200 BC. She apparently appeared at this time; the original language was probably Aramaic. Susanna and Daniel, About Vila of Babylon, About the Dragon of Babylon- three stories about Daniel. Two of them are simultaneously pamphlets ridiculing idolatry.
2)
The above-mentioned stories about Daniel constitute in the Septuagint additions to the canonical Book of the Prophet Daniel, preceding it or immediately following it; further in the Book of the Prophet Daniel are found Azariah's Prayer And Song of the Three Youths in a fiery furnace. In the Septuagint there is also whole line additions and insertions into the text of the OT, unreliable, but of great value due to their internal connection with the Bible. Book Esther contains six inserts of different content (following the verse Esther 1:1 and after the verse Esther 3:13; Esther 4:17; Esther 5:1,2; Esther 8:12; Esther 10:3). Prayer of Manasseh is an appendix to 2 Chronicles 33:11 et seq.
3)
Three works related or approaching the books of wisdom probably deserve special attention: Book Varucha, with the exception of its introduction, which is questionable from a historical point of view, is a collection of repentant prayers, mournful and consoling songs, as well as edifying verses, similar in style to those of the Old Testament. The same applies to the form and content of the so-called Epistles of Jeremiah, which appears in the Vulgate and in Luther as the 6th chapter of the Book of Baruch. On high level written Book Jesus son of Sirach. She is distinguished by her wealth literary forms, it contains numerous guidelines for practical and spiritual life and concludes with heartfelt praise of the forefathers of Israel from Enoch to Nehemiah. At the same time, this is the only book of this kind whose author is known to us. This is Jesus, son of Sirach, who wrote it around 190 BC. in Hebrew (more than two-thirds of the text of this book has been found among Hebrew manuscripts since 1896). His grandson about 132 BC. translated the book into Greek (Sir, preface; Sir 50:27 et seq.). In addition, the preface to this work indicates the time before 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 Greek-Hellenistic thinking with Jewish thinking, and on the other, to dissociate itself from it. It was written to strengthen the faith of the Jewish community in view of the danger of paganism. Wisdom, as the educated Greeks understood it, and justice, as the pious Jews thought of it, under the sign of Judaism enter into an alliance with each other to resist godlessness and idolatry; In this somewhat artificial way, Judaism and Hellenism are transformed into allies in the fight against a common enemy. The rulers of the earth are called to realize the wisdom thus understood. Then follows a broad survey of the activities of wisdom in Sacred history, beginning with Adam and down to the time of the possession of the Promised Land.
4)
Two prose works: books of Maccabees. 1 Mac may be of value to those interested in history because it introduces the historical setting of Palestine during the struggle of the Maccabees against the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 BC, Dan 11; → , II,1). This period is important for understanding the political, ethnic and religious balance of power in Palestine at the time of Jesus and the NT. The first part of 2 Mac, which probably belongs to another author, reflects the same situation. But historical accents noticeably give way to theological ones. It covers a shorter period than the first, and unlike it has pronounced features of legend-making. The book contains rich material for familiarization with the way of life and thinking of Pharisaism, which has already taken stable forms. Thus, the connection with the NT lies on the surface here. (Compare → ). All the apocrypha discussed here arose in the period from about 200 BC. to 100 A.D. Most of them were originally written in Greek, while the rest were translated into Greek from Hebrew or Aramaic. [The above apocrypha is contained in the Septuagint, Vulgate and Slavic Bible. In addition to them, such books as the Second Book of Ezra, the Third Book of Maccabees (included in the Septuagint and Slavic Bible) are also known; Third Book of Ezra (in the Slavonic Bible and Vulgate); The fourth book of Maccabees (in the appendix to the Septuagint). – Editor's note]
1)
It is difficult to make a clear distinction between apocryphal materials. Let us agree to designate as New Testament apocrypha those books that, in their claims and characteristics, are close to the books included in the NT. They were mostly published under the names of the apostles (pseudepigrapha), but were not included in the canon (the writings of the so-called “apostolic men” should be distinguished from them, see below). The time of appearance of pseudepigrapha falls on the 2nd-4th centuries AD.
2)
The following categories of New Testament apocrypha are distinguished: apocryphal gospels, which in their content are more or less related to the personalities of Jesus or His parents and quote those sayings of Jesus that are not attested to by the canonical Gospels. A number of these kinds of 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 works of the Church Fathers); however in modern period a number of apocrypha were rediscovered (for example, in Nag Hammadi). There were a large number of apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. They depict in relative detail the life and ministry of the apostles and their disciples (for example, Peter, Paul, Thomas, Andrew and others). In most cases they are of later origin than the apocryphal gospels and have also survived only in fragments. Only a few of the apocryphal messages have survived to this day. One such epistle is even attributed to Christ, three to Paul, one to Barnabas (in the form of epistles there are also writings by “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. The NT apocrypha contains practically no reliable historical material; with the apocrypha of the Old Testament the situation is different. In any case, they allow you to get acquainted with the religious culture of Judeo-Christianity in the period of the 2nd-4th centuries AD. The writings of the “apostolic men” should be distinguished from the New Testament apocrypha, i.e. works of the disciples of the apostles, dating from the end of the 1st century and the 2nd century AD. (appearing partly in parallel with the last books of the New Testament), which are mentioned here only because they are sometimes classified as apocrypha. We are talking primarily about epistles and apologetic treatises, from which one can learn about the relations between the churches in the 2nd century and which are quite reliable in their information. →
What are 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 is carefully hidden from “ ordinary people” and is accessible only to the “initiated”?
From time to time funds mass media explode with another sensation on the topic of biblical texts. Despite all the diversity, such news boils down to one scheme: finally, researchers managed to discover ancient written sources that allow us to take a different look at the history of Christianity and even show that the Church supposedly teaches something completely different from what Christ and His first followers said.
After some time, when the excitement subsides, as a rule, it turns out that the found written monument is nothing more than a copy or version of an ancient and long-known apocrypha, with which historians had dealt before, and that there is nothing fundamentally new in the new find. .
However, despite the obvious desire to create a sensation from scratch, the authors of both the apocrypha themselves and high-profile reports about them are doing very serious work. Its goal is to offer the inexperienced reader and viewer a different image of Christ, often strikingly different from the one evidenced by church tradition.
What is apocrypha?
Papyrus with the "Gospel of Mary" - a 2nd century apocrypha in Coptic Those who are now over forty years old remember children's books of the Soviet era very well. Beautiful, kind, interesting works, where heroes defeated evil, showing examples of courage, mutual assistance, loyalty and love. But there were also publications in which the child was biasedly told about the Bolshevik Party, revolutionaries, “Grandfather Lenin” and other similar concepts and personalities. The authors of these publications deliberately kept silent about negative traits those they wrote about, offering the young reader a popular and largely fictitious portrait of this or that figure, clearly dividing the world into “good” insiders and “bad” outsiders.
In the language of the Church, such creativity is called apocrypha - this is how texts are designated that in some way relate to Christianity, but have a very dubious origin. But before acquiring exactly this meaning, this term underwent 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 posed as Christians and believed that they possessed saving knowledge inaccessible to “ordinary mortals.” The unusual nature of the professed teachings, 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 (the name given to a number of different occult-mystical beliefs that were widespread in the Roman Empire and Western Asia in the 2nd and 3rd centuries) began to actively polemicize with the Church, the apocryphal writings became the property of the general public and ceased to be secret. But the very concept of apocrypha remains. Now the heretics put a sacred meaning into it and insisted that it was their writings that contained the truth, and that the Gospel and other Scriptures were allegedly a distortion and reworking of the original words of Christ. From now on, for heretics, the apocrypha was “secret” not so much because of its “underground origin”, but because it contained some very important information, understandable only to the most “enlightened” and “advanced”. Of course, these texts could also be read by an ordinary person. But he, according to the sectarians, could not see the hidden mysterious meaning, which 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 up 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. Thus, 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 works, the origin of which is beyond any doubt. Regarding the remaining scriptures that claimed to take their place in the Bible, but never took it, the Church has developed a very flexible position, which continues to this day. Based on it, the entire block of apocrypha can be divided into three groups of literary monuments.
Three types of apocrypha
If you ask a person who is a believer, but does not know church tradition very well, why the Church remembers events that are not written about in the Gospel - for example, the Savior’s descent into hell or the Dormition of the Virgin Mary - 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 Christ’s Passion - 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 recording of precisely that Tradition that has been preserved by the Church since the day of its founding.
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. These include, for example:
– “Proto-Gospel of Jacob” (c. mid-2nd century);
– “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or Didache” (beginning of the 2nd century);
– “The Gospel of Nicodemus”
(c. early 4th century);
– “The Shepherd” (c. 2nd century);
– “The Tale of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary”
(c. 5th century).
However, despite the fact that they are quite respectable in age, the Church has never equated them with the authentic Gospels, the Book of Acts and the Apostolic Epistles. And there were a number of very good reasons for this.
First, most of the apocrypha are at least a quarter of a century younger than the latest New Testament texts that have come down to us - the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. That is, these writings could not have been written by the apostles personally, although, undoubtedly, in general they reflect the tradition that developed back in apostolic times.
Secondly, almost all church apocrypha were created by anonymous people who deliberately signed the names of famous early Christian writers. In fact, there was nothing wrong with this - in the times of Antiquity and the Middle Ages this was done quite often, and not at all out of a desire to become famous or get rich (although this also happened), but simply because the works of famous authors had a better chance of finding their readers. However, an anonymous person is an anonymous person, and the holy fathers, who approved the biblical canon, saw perfectly well where the next Pauline epistle was, and where it was a later forgery, although similar in style to the original, but still having some differences. As a result, books whose origins were in doubt were never included in the Bible.
And the third reason logically follows from the second: anonymous writings, not included by the Church in the canonical books of Scripture, do not contain anything that is not contained in the canonical texts. As a rule, apocryphal collections are either retellings of pious stories, or a repetition of already famous 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 sanctify controversial creations with its authority. In addition, there was another reason for such a seemingly biased attitude towards these texts, but more about it below. For now, let's turn to two other types of apocrypha.
These are undoubtedly “false scriptures” that are of sectarian origin and refer to books that can bring confusion into the hearts of believers. Among them, the following stand out:
– “The Gospel of Childhood”;
– “The Gospel of Thomas”;
– “The Gospel of Judas”;
- “The Apostle Paul’s journey through torment.”
The exact date their creation is often difficult to establish, but most often it is the border 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 the growth in the number of Christians during the era of persecution. This was a time when, on the one hand, the Church was forced to secrecy and limit preaching. On the other hand, the very martyrdom of hundreds of thousands of Christians was already a powerful sermon to which hearts seeking God responded. However, after passing the stage primary training and having accepted Baptism, many new Christians were unable to completely break with their pagan past and abandon their previous errors. As a result, a situation arose when these people imposed some of their own personal worldviews 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 the pagans.
As a result of this rethinking, a whole layer of apocrypha of the second type appeared, in which one can find both Christ and church vocabulary, which, however, is filled with 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 greatly “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 in different time, 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 deliberately clothed in Christian forms, and the resulting works of “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 cases when heretics got their way, and they managed to lure some believers into their sects. At times, such apocrypha were created not by “inventing” something new, but as a result of “deep editing” of already known canonical texts. In any case, this created serious problem, since the fakes were often so skillful that only spiritually mature and theologically “savvy” people could identify 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 here the question arises: is it really that important? 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 real canonical Gospel - shows us one very important truth, which today quite often does not pay due attention. Each of us knows this truth from childhood. Its essence is that a Christian is called to believe in Christ. This faith, or rather, this calling is main feature Christianity, which sets it apart from a number of other religious systems in the world.
If we try to answer the question of what is the essence of religion, 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 differently and offer accordingly different ways his achievements.
The first and most numerous group of religions believes 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 standards in different religions may not match. However, the principle is the same: if a person fulfills these instructions correctly, then immortal life after death he is guaranteed. If a person violated these norms or did not fulfill them at all, then he faces eternal punishment. But, no matter what fate befalls 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 gap between the Divine and man. And a person cannot cross this abyss either in earthly or in the afterlife.
Scroll from Nag Hammadi There is another group of religions. They believe that only God exists, and everything else is just “shards” of the Divine that have become separated from their Source and “forgot” about their origin. Man in these religions is also considered a god, who is called to emerge from this material world and unite with the Divine, from which he once fell. Therefore, eternal bliss is understood as the union of the soul with the Supreme Divine Absolute, while the soul itself completely dissolves in God and the human personality completely disappears.
But there is also Christianity. And the understanding of salvation that it offers to man is radically different from all possible schemes that form the basis of other religions of the world.
On the one hand, Christianity in no way denies that God and man are on opposite sides of existence, that God is the Creator, and man is just a creature limited by the boundaries of space and time. But, on the other hand, Christianity insists that the gap that really exists between the Creator and the creature is surmountable and that a person can really participate in the divine existence of the Holy Trinity, while remaining a person and not completely dissolving in the all-consuming abyss of the Divine. In other words, in Christianity a person is called, while remaining himself and without losing his personal uniqueness, to unite with his Creator and become God by grace.
It was to achieve this goal that Christ came to our world two thousand years ago. The four Gospels, which were compiled by His disciples, tell about His earthly life, teaching, miracles. At first glance, the sermon of their Teacher is similar to the sermon of other philosophers and prophets. But this is only at first glance.
The fact is that in any other religion in the world, the personality of the teacher occupies a secondary place in relation to the teaching that he preaches. Even if the person who carries this teaching to other people is its direct author, the teaching still comes first, and its author comes second. Of course, this does not mean that the teacher himself cannot be revered. On the contrary, the vast majority of religions have great respect for their founders, giving them high honors and even worshiping them. But if we imagine that for some reason the name of the founder of this or that religious tradition was forgotten or completely unknown, 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, everything is 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 guidebooks, pointing out the right road and helping to pave 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 follows 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 is more than just a prophet or founder new religion. They saw in Him the Son of God and God, who came to this world to save his lost creation - man. And for two thousand years now, 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 confess that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
So, a Christian is one who believes in Christ. Or rather, one for whom Christ is the core of his entire life. Without this most important condition, our faith turns into an empty formality, our worship into beautiful performances, and our morality into a simple glass game. 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.
The distorting mirror of the apocrypha
But it is precisely this most essential thought (that without Christ there is no salvation) that is not found in any of the apocrypha of the second and third types. The main feature of any fraudulent work, one way or another related to Christianity, is the fact that in it Christ appears as a kind of technical figure and does not play, by and large, leading role. In the apocrypha, he can be anyone - a teacher, mentor, preacher, higher mind, a miracle worker or someone else. There is only one thing He fundamentally cannot be - a Loving God, Crucified for the sake of saving the world.
This happens because pagan consciousness (by the way, and materialistic consciousness too) puts an insurmountable wall between the Creator and creation. The fallen human mind is unable to perceive 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 isolation of 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 becomes secondary.
And any “seductive” teaching is born where God comes from main goal human existence turns into only a means to achieve some good. For different groups For pagans, this benefit was presented in different ways. For example, Gnostic pantheists, who considered the world a continuation of the divine absolute, strived for complete dissolution in the “abyss of the deity”, for the complete destruction of their own personal beginning and union with the Primary Source. For these heretics Christ was God's messenger, who, in their opinion, came only to inform people of some knowledge that could be guaranteed to lead the chosen ones to their intended goal. Other authors of the apocrypha (for example, numerous so-called “Childhood Gospels”) emphasized the miracles performed by the young Jesus. This “mania for miracles” is understandable, since in the minds of the authors the image of the Messiah was not closely connected with the idea Loving God, but with the concept of an omnipotent miracle worker who, after the apocalypse, will reward all the saved righteous.
But many apocrypha of the first circle (that is, books that were 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 talk a lot about morality, about faith, about salvation, but very little about Christ. It is given in them as if “by default”. It is implied 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. This approach is possible in principle. But it can only be used by spiritually mature people.
A New Testament- for everyone, he is universal, and therefore his books should testify to the most important thing - about God, “for us, man and for our salvation, he came down from Heaven.” If a new Christian begins to immediately talk about the “mechanism” of salvation, then there is a huge risk that such a believer will never 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 the canonical code was ultimately compiled.
When reading in newspapers or the Internet another message that somewhere a certain scripture has again been found, which supposedly 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 Should I believe in this Christ? If the reader of such sensations really cares about Jesus of Nazareth as one of the teachers of righteousness, who performed miracles and called everyone to love and compassion, then perhaps we can continue to listen to this news. But if a person cares about Christ, Who gave us His Church - the God and Savior of the entire universe, calling us to Himself, then in this case it would be logical to brush aside such things in every possible way and trust in the experience of the saints, who have long said their word regarding such “scriptures.” "and throughout their lives they demonstrated fidelity to the very truths that are revealed in the canonical books of the New Testament.
Gospel of Thomas
The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head and rest. 91.Jesus said: Miserable is the body that depends on the body, and miserable is the soul that depends on both. 92.Jesus said: Angels and prophets come to you, and they will give you what is yours, and you also give them what is in your hands, and say to yourself: On what day do they come and take what is theirs? 93.Jesus said: Why do you wash the inside of the cup and do not understand what the one who did inner part, did you also do the outside part? 94.Jesus said: Come to me, for my yoke is easy and my power is gentle, and you will find rest for yourself. 95.They said to him: Tell us who you are, so that we may believe in you. He said to them: You test the face of heaven and earth; and who what? before you - how to experience it. 96. Jesus said: Seek and you will find, but those things that you asked me in those days, I did not tell you then. Now I want to say them and you don't look for them. 97. Do not give what is holy to dogs, lest they throw it into the dung. Do not throw pearls to swine, lest they do it... 98. Jesus said: He who seeks will find, and he who knocks will have the door opened to him. 99. Jesus said: If you have money, do not lend it on interest, but give...from whom you will not take it. 100.Jesus said: The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman who took some leaven, put it in dough and divided it into large loaves. He who has ears, let him hear! 101.Jesus said: The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman carrying a vessel full of flour and walking along a receding road. The handle of the vessel broke, the flour scattered behind it on the road. She didn't know about it, she didn't understand how to act. When she reached her home, she placed the vessel on the ground and found it empty. 102.Jesus said: The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who wants to kill strong man . He drew a sword in his house, he thrust it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand would be strong. Then he killed the strong man. 103.The disciples said to him: Your brothers and your mother are standing outside. He said to them: Those who are here, who do the will of my Father, are my brothers and my mother. They are the ones who will enter the kingdom of my Father. 104.They showed Jesus the gold and said to him: Those who belong to Caesar demand tribute from us. He said to them: Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and what is mine, give it to me! 105. He who did not hate his father and his mother, like I did, cannot be my disciple, and he who did not love his father and his mother, like me, cannot be my disciple. For my mother... but truly she gave me life. 106.Jesus said: Woe to them, the Pharisees! For they are like a dog that sleeps on a bullock trough. For she neither eats nor gives the oxen food. 107.Jesus said: Blessed is the man who knows at what time the robbers come, so that he will rise, gather... and gird up his loins before they come. 108.They said to him: Let us go and pray today and fast. Jesus said: What is the sin that I have committed or to which I have succumbed. But when the bridegroom comes out of the bridal chamber, then let them fast and let them pray! 109.Jesus said: He who knows his father and mother will be called the son of a harlot. 110.Jesus said: When you make the two one, you will become the Son of man, and if you say to the mountain: Move, it will move. 111.Jesus said: The kingdom is like a shepherd who has a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, got lost. He left the ninety-nine and searched for one until he found her. After he had labored, he said to the sheep: I love you more than ninety-nine. 112.Jesus said: He who drinks from my lips will become like me. I too, I will become him, and the secret will be revealed to him. 113.Jesus said: The kingdom is like a man who has secret treasure in his field without knowing it. And he didn't find it before he died, he left it to his son. The son didn't know; he received this field and sold it. And the one who bought it came, dug up and found the treasure. He started lending money at interest to those he wanted. 114.Jesus said: He who has found peace and become rich, let him renounce the world! 115.Jesus said: The heavens and the earth will be rolled up before you, and he who lives from the living will not see death. For? Jesus said: He who has found himself, the world is not worthy of him. 116.Jesus said: Woe to that flesh that depends on the soul; woe to that soul that depends on the flesh. 117.His disciples said to him: On what day does the kingdom come? Jesus said: It does not come when expected. They won’t say: Here, here! - or: There, there! “But the Father’s kingdom is spreading across the earth, and people do not see it. 118. Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life. Jesus said: See, I will guide her to make her a man, so that she also may become a living spirit like you men. For every woman who becomes a man will enter the kingdom of heaven. Gospel of Thomas Commentary This historical document is composed of a dialogue between Jesus and the Apostle Thomas and includes 114 logions translated from Greek - sayings that are very different in spirit from the texts in the New Testament. This manuscript, like all the other books found with it, dates back to around 350 AD. The manuscript contained references to a Greek text, fragments of which found during archaeological excavations date back to the year 200. Thus, the Greek version of this gospel is an earlier document than is commonly believed. Leading scholars have differing opinions regarding this manuscript. Some believe that its origins go back to the time of Jesus Christ, others believe that this new gospel is actually the source Q of the New Testament - the documentary basis from which all other parts of the Bible are created. The theory of the existence of a Q source was first proposed in the 19th century by a German scientist. The manuscript gives us answers to some controversial issues theology and testifies to the exceptional diversity of religious doctrines of early Christianity. But the most important thing is different: the 5th Gospel proves that the Christian tradition was by no means always so rigid and unchanging. IN Lately Quite often there are rumors that there are certain materials about Jesus Christ that official church has been hiding for almost 2000 years. Be that as it may, now we can lift the veil of secrecy surrounding this historical document. It is known that books from the library found in Nag Hammadi disappeared from circulation or were hidden in the 4th century AD, when the Council of Nicaea proclaimed the unity of faith and religious doctrine. Any deviation from this doctrine came to be considered heresy. In response to such ideological tightening, some texts of a religious nature that did not fit into the official doctrine were hidden for the time being. No one could even imagine that this “for the time being” would last for as long as 1600 years! A distinction must be made between the purely historical significance of this document and its religious significance. Official doctrine is based on the opinions of just a few people. By the time the decision was made to adhere to a single Christian doctrine, the Council of Nicea had already excluded these texts from Christian teaching. The very fact that only one copy of these texts has reached us suggests that they were not available from the very beginning. general public and were rather in the nature of some secret or even esoteric literature. Today, the scientific community is divided on these texts, and the church stubbornly refuses to accept them as a full-fledged Christian heritage. Commentary by A. Loginov Anyone who reads the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas for the first time usually experiences disappointment: the sayings of Jesus collected in this work seem so familiar to him from the canonical version of the New Testament. However, the deeper he dives into the study of the text, the stronger his doubts about the validity of such an impression. Gradually he becomes convinced how difficult it is to answer the question of what this famous “fifth gospel” is, as it was initially called. Already the first lines of the monument, setting up for its interpretation “He who finds the interpretation of these words will not taste death,” force the modern reader to think not only about the meaning that the author proposes to discover, but also about what this call itself means, what kind of communication path it implies, what kind of thinking one has to deal with, what phenomena of culture and social history it testifies to. The task cannot but captivate the one who takes on this most interesting document. At a quick glance, the closest of Nag Hammadi's works to the much-researched tradition of early Christianity, upon closer examination it turns out to be perhaps the most difficult to understand. Even the dark speculations of the Apocrypha of John or the mysterious "Essence of the Archons" ultimately leave less room for doubt than this gospel. Contents of the apocrypha “These are the secret words that the living Jesus spoke and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.” – See the introduction stops anyone who studies the history of early Christianity and its spiritual environment. In this work, which promises to expound the secret teachings of Jesus and was rejected by the church, researchers are looking for answers to numerous questions regarding the development of Christianity and Gnosticism. The gospel came to us in Codex II of Nag Hammadi. It is the second in it, occupying pages 32. 1051.26. Since it, like the Gospel of Philip that follows it, consists of individual sayings, it is usually divided by sayings, which we follow (1). The monument is well preserved, there are almost no gaps. The Gospel is a translation from Greek into the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language. How and where to approach the interpretation of the monument? Shouldn't we start from those few references from the church fathers about the so-called Gospel of Thomas, to which the researchers first of all turned? However, research carried out by J. Doress and A. S. Puech and other scientists convinces: the similarity between the works bearing the same name as the second work from the Nag Hammadi Codex II is in some cases purely external (2). May be, more luck promises a way to study the monument from the point of view of those concepts and images that are found in it - the kingdom, peace, light, darkness, peace, life, death, spirit, forces, angels - and which allow us to outline its content zone. Much attention has been paid to this in foreign literature. But does such an analysis exhaust the possibility of understanding all the uniqueness of the monument? Isn’t the ideological content highlighted in this way distorted in logically flawless, more or less unambiguous systems? Don't they impose
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