The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)/Epistles
EPISTLES
This form did not find much favour with the makers of apocrypha. True, without going into the more destructive theories which would deny St. Paul all but four of the Epistles—or, all the Epistles which go under his name—many critics regard the Pastoral Epistles as, in their present form, not genuine writings of his, and a yet larger consensus is against the authenticity of 2 Peter. But, apart from possibilities of this kind, it does appear that the Epistle was on the whole too serious an effort for the forger, more liable to detection, perhaps, as a fraud, and not so likely to gain the desired popularity as a narrative or an Apocalypse. Certain it is that our apocryphal Epistles are few and not impressive. By far the most considerable is that Epistle of the Apostles which has only become known in recent years; and the greater part of this is not an Epistle but a dialogue.
One famous apocryphal Epistle will not be produced here, viz. the Letter of Christ concerning Sunday, extant in almost every European language and in many Oriental versions. It was fabled to have fallen on the altar at Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople—where not?—and is a long, very dull denunciation of what we call Sabbath-breaking, with threats of disaster to the transgressors.
Another, not famous, must also be omitted, viz. the Epistle of Titus, of which something has been said apropos of the fragments of the Acts of John, Peter, and Andrew which it contains. Apart from these quotations and others of the same kind, it is incredibly dull. I believe it to be a Manichaean writing, or possibly Paulician. It has not yet been printed in full.