mountainman

What early sources have any bearing on the chronology of the NT apochrypha? What early sources have any bearing on the identity of the author(s)? Please provide any data on the non-canonical corpus that you consider to be relevant.

Most surprisingly, one author appears convinced that in regard to the second question, we only have one witness, in Tertullian's De baptismo 17.5 witness to "The Acts of Paul (and Thecla)". In his article.pdf entitled Tertullian on the Acts of Paul the author A. Hilhorst makes the following generalised statement as part of his conclusion: "To the best of my knowledge, [Tertullian's De baptismo 17.5] is the only case in which we have any information on an author of apocryphal writings". The context of this quote is as follows. Please refer to the article itself for the complete context.


In this article the author mentions that the manuscripts which preserve Tertullian's De baptismo are quite late. He mentions
that the "scholar Andre Wilmart found a twelfth-century manuscript of De baptismo in the French city of Troyes. This witness, the Troyes
manuscript or codex Trecensis". The article discusses the available manuscripts -- they all look quite late. The author also discusses Jerome's contribution to the puzzle of the identity and the chronology of the author of this NT apochryphal act "The Acts of Paul (and Thecla)". Jerome appears to be going for an early chronology between 68 and 98 CE in which someone who personally knew the true blue apostles might be implicated. Such an early date cannot be maintained today, but could have been maintained to fuel the conjecture previously held concerning the figure of Leucius Charinus - previously a chief suspect in the authorship stakes for many of the early apocryphal tractates - especially "The Acts of <<INSERT APOSTLE HERE>>".


In summary, I'd like to explore the state of affairs with the actual sources by which we are either seeking the chronology of, or seeking the identity of the author(s) of the new testament apocrypha, which are assumed to have been written in the period of "early christian origins". There are a number of difficulties in employing Tertullian's citation in order to estimate the chronology of the whole set of early apochryphal tractates, the lateness of the manuscript itself being one. If Tertullian is not employed thus as a benchmark to determine firstly the date and author of "The Acts of Paul (and Thecla)", what other sources remain (other than Eusebius, of course)?

Thanks for any information.
Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

So far we have the following one source citation, as reported by Eusebius, the author Tertullian writes:

De Baptismo (Concerning Baptism) is dated c.200 CE. Extant in one manuscript and a printed copy of 1545 which goes back to an older manuscript, which appears to be no earlier than the eleventh or twelfth century.

Here are some additional citations to be looked at in the future gathered from this review.



Early Sources to the NT Apocrypha


2) The Gospel of Thomas - (early second century) - known to Hippolytus, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Irenaeus.

3) The Gospel of Peter - (second century). Origen, Eusebius, and Theodoret, Eusebius identified it as docetic.

4) Protevangelium of James - (late second century). This book is mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and many other early Fathers.
Only one manuscript copy is preserved, in the Bodmer papyrus collection at Oxford University.
It is characterized by a particular devotion to Mary.

5) The Gospel of the Hebrews - (second century). The Gospel of the Hebrews is a false gnostic gospel
that was known to Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome.

6) The Gospel of the Egyptians - (second century). mentioned by Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
It survives in only a few fragments. Like most of the Pseudepigraphical gospels, the Gospel of the Egyptians is heretical.
It purports that Jesus “showed his disciples that the same person was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
There seems to be an early ascetic tendency in the cult that produced the work,


7) The Gospel of Philip - (second century). - This is a gnostic gospel known only by one citation until a fourth-or fifth-century manuscript
was found in the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, Egypt (1945). It narrates the manner of the ascent
of a soul through seven successive spheres of hostile “powers” (planetary archons). Its expressions
resemble the neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (c. 232-c. 303), a disciple of Plotinus (c. 205-70)
who was a fellow classmate of Origen (in the third century).


8) The Gospel According to Mathias: The Traditions of Mathias - known to Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Ambrose, and Jerome.
Quotations from it are preserved by Clement of Alexandria: (1) “Wonder at what is present.” ... a Gnostic influence manifest.

9) The Gospel of Judas - (late second century). This gospel was known to Irenaeus and Epiphanius (c. 315-403), bishop of Salamia.



So the sources so far appear to be Tertullian, Irenaeus, Clement, Origen and Hippolytus (all of whom are represented exclusively by Eusebius).

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Researchers of christian origins,

Here is a listing in chronological order of all the new testament apocryphal acts and gospels according to the estimations of current scholarship, as best as I have been able to collate after some research. If you notice that I have dated any of these tractates with an inappropriate century, please let me know ....

Chronology of the NT Apocryphal Acts and Gospels

The Gospel of Peter (1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Egyptians(1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Hebrews(1st-2nd)
The Gospel of Thomas (1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Lord [by Marcion](2nd)
The Gospel of Judas(2nd)
The Gospel of Mary [Magdalene](2nd)
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas [Greek Text A](2nd)
The Gospel of James (Infancy)(2nd)
The Gospel of the Ebionites(2nd)
The Gospel of the Nazoreans(2nd)
The Acts of Andrew and John (*H)(2nd-3rd)
The Gospel of Philip (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles(2nd-3rd )
The Acts of Paul*(*R) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter and Andrew(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Andrew and Matthew (*H)(2nd-3rd )
The Acts of Andrew*(*H) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of John*(*H) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Paul and Thecla*(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Thomas(3rd)
The Acts of John the Theologian*(3rd-4th)
The Acts of Polyeuctes (3rd-4th)
The Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca (3rd-4th)

==========================================
The Council of Nicaea - 325 CE - inserted for reference
==========================================

The Acts of Pilate (4th)
The Gospel of Gamaliel (4th)
The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles(4th)
The Acts of the Martrys(4th)
The Death of Pilate*(4th)
The History of Joseph the Carpenter*(4th)
The Gospel of Nicodemus (4th)
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (4th)
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary(4th)
The Acts of Philip(4th-5th)
The Acts of Thaddaeus*(4th-5th)
The Gospel of Bartholomew (4th-5th)
The Acts of Peter and Paul*(4th-5th)
The Act of Peter(4th-5th)
The Acts of Simon and Jude(4th-5th)
The History of John(4th-5th)
The Acts of Mark(4th-5th)
The Acts of Luke(4th-5th)
The Acts of Titus(5th)
The Gospel of Thomas - A 5th Century Compilation(5th)
The Acts of Timothy(5th)
The Acts of Bartholomew(5th)
The Acts of Barnabas*(5th)
The Acts and Martyrdom of Andrew*(5th)
The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew*(5th)
An Arabic Infancy Gospel(5th)
The Acts of Matthew(6th)
The Secret Gospel of Mark(Twentieth)

(53 row(s) affected)

As a point of interest 25 appear to have been authored before the council of Nicaea (at which point christianity was formally established as the Roman state monotheistic). The balance of 28 appear to have been authored after this council of Nicea. Now I have a preliminary question about this, and I will be interested in any opinions that contributors may wish to offer.

If the above chronology accurately reflects ancient history then I would have expected there to be a change of polemic within the NT apocyrphal literature at the time christianity was made the state religion, and yet there is no indication within the later tractates (ie: after Nicaea) that they are written in a completely different socio-political epoch than the earlier set of 25 texts.

Can anyone provide a reason why this would be so?
Best wishes,



Pete

Toto

Perhaps the Roman Empire was less influntial as far as the sort of writer who writes this sort of literature than you thought.

Or yout chronology is wrong. Crossan wants to date gPeter very early for his own reason

mountainman

Dear Toto,

The chronology above was gathered by a review "mainstream" sources, as a starting point, and I am well aware it could be wrong. Crossan seems to have put a lot of work into the gPeter. His book The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (or via: amazon.co.uk) really says it all, doesn't it?. I could be reading him incorrectly, but he is really trying to push the chronology envelope back on the gPeter, to perhaps even earlier than the gospels. He appears to be breaking up the text into slabs to suit his agenda. The manuscript is from the 8th century last I heard.


Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Toto,

Thanks for the response to this question. The list of the apocryphal gospels and apocryphal acts of the apostles above also shows the contempory assigned chronology (collected from BC&H scholarship). We have a spread of Acts and Gospels before and after Nicaea. At Nicaea the Roman empire became a "christian empire", and what was by all accounts at least a very small and insignificant, perhaps little known religious sect called "christianity" was pushed to the supreme position of "authorised state religion".

At this time, the canon of the NT, containing its gospels and its Acts would have become visible to the great and small, the educated and uneducated alike. It was a huge and momentous change for society.

Why do we not have two different types of apocryphal acts and gospels -- ones written before Nicaea and one's written after, differentiated on the basis of this momentous social and religious change in the ROman empire? I think that your response "the Roman Empire was less influential as far as the sort of writer who writes this sort of literature" does not take into account the "heretic status" placed on the apocryphal acts and gosples as "heretical tractates" by the Roman christian empire. The fourth and fifth and sixth and.... etc ... centuries are replete with references that these documents were politically sensitive: banned, forbidden, to be burnt, to be destroyed, impious, etc, etc, etc.

Even in the epoch c.845 CE we have the books of apocryphal acts and gospels being described in the following terms by Photius ....

What sort of an Amazon review is this?

Yes, this is what I suspect is the nature of the problem. The apocrypha look to be a reasonably cohesive genre. We currently believe, because of citations to the existence of some of the apocryphal tractates in the patristic literature, that some of the NT apocrypha were authored before christianity became the state religion. I am presently attempting to collate these sources, and to examine them and to discuss the possibility that they were inserted by Eusebius into his "sources" after Nicaea. We will see that the number of sources is very small, and the nature of the sources are very brief, and often ambiguous. Eusebius deals with the narrative of heresy in his works, but when it comes down to the sources we are left with little data. One would expect that if at least some of these apocryphal texts were really heretical (which I think is not disputed) then someone should have mentioned them. Someone should have mentioned the names of the apocyrphal acts and gosples, and discussed them in depth as to why they were heretical, or in he very least -- have provided the name of an author. We dont have a name for any author. The name of Leucius is mentioned in association with being the disciple of the Devil. The second name "Charinus" appears only with the christian Photius in the ninth century. (Some think Photius was reading these books in Bagdad, not in the vatican.)

The state christian victors simply suppressed the knowledge and the publications of their pagan opponents as a natural political initiative. You will note I hope that this argument is entirely independent of the authenticity and chronology of the new testament canon. All I will be trying to argue is that it is more reasonable to believe that the entire set of NT apocryphal acts and gospels were authored after christianity became "legalised" and the official state religion c.324/325 CE. That the NT Apocrypha are polemical literary reaction to the prominence and authority of the NT canon. Only when christianity was raised to state religion and only at that time when the NT canon was lavishly published and distributed to all and sundry, did the polemical reaction commence in earnest from the greek academic ascetic dissidents. The NT Apocrypha as a set appear to be well acquainted with the canonical gospels and acts. I am going to argue that this was a result of chronology, and that they were only "well known and studied" at and after Nicaea.

We may be reasonably well assured (by scholarship) that the author(s) of the NT apocryphal acts and gospels were not the same author(s) of the NT canonical gospels and Acts. Treating the authorship of the apocrypha in this way automatically explains the cohesive nature of the genre of the NT Apocyrpha as Hellenistic Romances ---- of the Travels of the Apostles. Therefore I will be presenting a case that the epoch of authorship of the NT apocyrpha was between 325 CE and perhaps the end of the fourth century, when the hellenistic culture had been beaten into submission by the christian emperors and their minions.

At present I will need to individually examine at least the following tractates, which have been assigned by the consensus of new testament biblical studies scholarship to the pre-Nicene epoch:

Reportedly "Pre-Nicene" NT Apocryphal Acts and Gospels

The Gospel of Peter (1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Egyptians(1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Hebrews(1st-2nd)
The Gospel of Thomas (1st-2nd)
The Gospel of the Lord [by Marcion](2nd)
The Gospel of Judas(2nd)
The Gospel of Mary [Magdalene](2nd)
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas [Greek Text A](2nd)
The Gospel of James (Infancy)(2nd)
The Gospel of the Ebionites(2nd)
The Gospel of the Nazoreans(2nd)
The Acts of Andrew and John (*H)(2nd-3rd)
The Gospel of Philip (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles(2nd-3rd )
The Acts of Paul*(*R) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Peter and Andrew(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Andrew and Matthew (*H)(2nd-3rd )
The Acts of Andrew*(*H) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of John*(*H) (2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Paul and Thecla*(2nd-3rd)
The Acts of Thomas(3rd)

NB: Althought there are other categories of NT apocrypha, such as letters, correspondence, apocalypses, revelations, etc, etc I will not for the moment be dealing with these, on the basis that the entire argument (wrt chronology) can be either won or lost with respect to the acts and gospels alone.

Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

I am referencing the Gospel of Peter. Crossan appears to want to use slabs of the text for a reliable guide into the first few nono-seconds of the Big Passion Event, despite the fact that Eusebius categorically asserts that the text was written by heretics. Here are my formative notes on the Gospel of Peter:

I have not read Crossan. Does anyone knows how he deals with the comments of Eusebius about the heretical nature of the gPeter in his arguments in any of his books? Does he acknowledge Eusebius's pronouncements on this tractate?

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Read Who Killed Jesus? (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Crossan does not comment on gPeter as being heretical, and does not mention Eusebius in that book. This might be because he works with a more or less standard dating of Christianity, and does not think that gPeter was heretical when it was written, probably because there was no heresy at that presumed point in history.

Crossan dates gPeter as early as he can because he is trying to show that attitudes toward the Jews progressed over time, and he thinks that gPeter was less anti-Semitic on some level. I don't know of any other attempt at a precise date for this gospel, which is rather fragmentary and only survives in part. I think that it is agreed that it was popular at one time, and only later condemned as heretical.

There are a lot of people who think that very early Christianity was pure and virtuous, and the religion only became corrupt and authoritarian when Constantine made it official. These people tend to ignore Eusebius.

None of this supports your thesis at all. In fact, I don't know of any support for your late dating of the gnostic literature. I hope this is not going to become another hobby horse where you continually post speculation without evidence.

mountainman

Dear Toto,

According to the editorial review:
What was the "confession of faith"?

gPeter was deemed heretical because of its "Docetic character". How does he handle this? Does he cut the Docetic bits out of the text and treat them as additions?


The popularity of the Hellenistic romance narrative probably had alot to do with "The Cross that walked along by itself and said "Yea!" This is novel.

This has got to be one whopper of a tall story, written for entertainment value. But who wrote it and when is the question.


Fairyland stuff. They are ignoring the fact that Eusebius' masterful rhetoric is really our only source of "early christianity" ...


I have a new thesis. The old thesis is resting. The new thesis is that the apocyrphal new testament tractates (listed above) were all written after Nicaea in the fourth century, as Hellenistic romance literature which poked fun at Jesus and the "Travels of the Apostles", and as such was extremely popular with the people. Conversely, these tractates were viewed as political sedition by the christian state religious monotheistic orthodox basilica-network. It would be reasonable to assume that a price was put on the heads of the satirical author(s) responsible. Steps were taken to take the offending material out of public view - Athanasius conducted searches for these heretical tractates. They were listed and banned. But they remained popular with the people, because of their imaginative and romantic narratives, the wonderful miracles, the tall tales of high adventure, etc. Hundreds of years passed by and the poltical reality of the tension between the NT canon on the orthodox side, and the non canonical "Travels of the Apostles" as a seditious competitor, were forgotten. But the romantic tales were not. Of course some of the gnostic material was preserved without narrative, such as the gThomas.

In addition to this, you are going to have to admit that our knowledge of the NT apocryphal literature has only increased -- and quite dramatically so -- over the last 100 years of so, with all these new archaeological discoveries, and the rise of C14 dating.

At least half of the NT apocryphal Acts and Gospels (which has been expanding over the centuries) are post-Nicean, by he consensus of current scholarship. If that is not enough, we may cite the two C14 results:

* Codex Tchacos = 290 plus or minus 60 years
* Nag Hammadi codices = 348 CE (+/- 60 years).

Additionally, many of the apocryphal tractates are based on data contained in the four gospels. Scholars have been using this criteria to date the chronology of the apocrypha after the four gospels became popular. They clearly were written after the canon, but when was the canon written, and how far after it were the apocrypha written? These are the questions. While the "early christianity" was an underground cult, it did not receive, one might expect, too much publicity. However, it got plenty of publicity in the fourth century: imperial publicity. One would expect the polemic against christainity to have been very greekly vocal at that time. According to the mainstream opiniona large number of NT apocryphal tractates were in fact authored in the fourth century, for example, the Acts of Philip and the Acts of Titus. All I am going to try and establish is the evidence by which we currently assume that at least some of the NT apocrypha were written while christianity was "underground". I have started that task in this thread.




As stated in the subject of the thread, I intend to examine the testimony of the "early witnesses" to the early chronology of the new testament apocryphal literature, and see exactly what it amounts to. This enquiry is totally independent of my earlier thesis. If it assist the dialogue then we may assume the canon existed prior to Nicaea. I am not examining the canon. I have elsewhere expressed my opinion of the genre of the NT canon.

I am now examining the non canonical texts, which are generally accepted as being authored after the canon, but which I will argue were in fact only authored after the canon was widely published in the fourth century.

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Where do you see this term?

There are docetic elements in the gospels. They are generally treated as add-ons to a historical core. If you read Crossan, he thinks that most of the gospels, whether canonical or non, are not historical, but that there is a historical core. If you go back in the archives, he has said that he can't prove that there is any historical core.

me: This is a dead parrot thesis.

Pete: 'E's not dead, 'e's only resting

:banghead::banghead::banghead: