The Apocrypha of the ancient Christians, the Apocryphal Gospels, are early Christian writings that were not recognized by the Church and rejected by it. They broaden our understanding of Christian literature, testify to the struggle of various tendencies in Christian ideology at the early stages of its development.

History of Christianity, Apocrypha, Apologetics ru Tatyana Trushova saphyana@inbox.ru ExportToFB21, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 07.03.2011 OOoFBTools-2011-3-7-17-52-58-82 1.0 Apocrypha of ancient Christians Thought Moscow 1989 ISBN 5–244–00269–4

Apocrypha of ancient Christians

Authors of translations, research articles, notes and comments:

Doctor of Historical Sciences I.S. Sventsitskaya (Part I)

Candidate of Historical Sciences M.K. Trofimova (Part II)

From the compilers

The problems of the formation of Christianity, the emergence of its teaching, and various internal currents are of interest not only to historians and philosophers, but also to a fairly wide range of readers. The purpose of this book is to satisfy this interest, at least partially, by acquainting readers with some of the writings of Christians created in the first centuries of the new doctrine. These writings are not recognized by the Church as sacred; They are usually called apocrypha (secret, forged, from the Greek apocryphus - secret). However, in the first and third centuries they were in circulation among various groups of believers and were revered no less than the books included in the Bible.

The apocryphal writings included in the book are limited by time and genre frames. The first part presents fragments and complete texts of the Gospels and sayings attributed to Jesus (translated from ancient Greek). These texts (1st-2nd centuries) are related in content and genre to the tradition represented in the Gospels of the New Testament. The second part mainly includes texts translated from Coptic from the so-called Gnostic library, discovered in 1945 in Nag Hammadi (Egypt). Most of them date back to the 2nd-4th centuries and are translations from Greek. For more information on the Nag Hammadi library and the Gnostic teachings rejected as heresy by orthodox Christianity, see the introduction to the second part of the book. The monuments presented in the second part are independent works, they are intrinsically connected, reflecting the basic tenets of Gnostic teachings. Two of them, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, had already been published in Russian in the translation of M. K. Trofimova (see: M. K. Trofimova, Historical and Philosophical Issues of Gnosticism, Moscow, 1979).

An extensive literature is devoted to the apocrypha of the New Testament tradition and Gnostic works, published mainly abroad. A special historiographical study would be needed to analyze it. Therefore, only those works are mentioned in the notes that, in the opinion of the compilers, reflect points of view directly related to the works in question.

Each text is preceded by a separate essay analyzing it. In addition, the first part is preceded by a general introduction, which characterizes the process of the formation of early Christian literature.