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.

The book is equipped with a reference apparatus: notes to the introductory articles are located at the end of each part, comments to the texts follow immediately after them.

In the translations, square brackets indicate gaps in the text and their filling, in parentheses there are additions made by the translator for clarity, in angle brackets there are corrections of errors made by the copyist in the ancient original, in curly brackets are taken the passages that have been rewritten for the second time.

The following notations are used when quoting: in the texts of the New Testament, the first Arabic numeral indicates the chapter number, the second and subsequent numerals indicate the verse number. In the Nag Hammadi texts (with the exception of the Gospels of Thomas and Philip), the Roman numeral indicates the ordinal number of the codex (book), the Arabic numeral indicates the number of the work, the number of the page and the line (separated by a dot). The Gospels of Thomas and Philip are quoted with the number of the sayings. In references to the works of ancient and Christian writers, Roman numerals indicate the number of the book (scroll), Arabic numerals indicate the number of the chapter and paragraph.

The author of introductory articles, commentaries, translations of texts and notes of Part I "Apocryphal Gospels of the New Testament Tradition" is I. S. Sventsitskaya. He is the author of introductory articles, commentaries, translations of texts and notes of Part II "Gnostic Apocrypha from Nag Hammadi" by M. K. Trofimov.

Part I: The Apocryphal Gospels of the New Testament Tradition

The Emergence of Early Christian Literature

The problem of determining the time and place of the origin of ancient Christian literature, the features of its genres, the origins and sources of books, both recognized and not recognized by the Church as sacred, has not been fully solved in modern science [1]. The New Testament, a collection of books revered by all Christians, includes twenty-seven works: the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), the Acts of the Apostles, and twenty-one Epistles of the Apostles. The Church attributes the authorship of fourteen of them to the Apostle Paul (they are addressed to certain Christian communities or specific people), there are also the Epistle of James, two Epistles of Peter, three Epistles of John and the Epistle of Jude: they are usually called "catholic" or "catholic", i.e. addressed to all Christians. The New Testament ends with the Revelation of John the Theologian. The texts of the New Testament are considered canonical ("normative"), the Church proclaims them to be divinely inspired. They were written in Greek, the spoken language of many of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire (although in Palestine itself, where the first Christian preachers appeared, they spoke mainly Aramaic).