THE APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
THE line which divides the Canonical from the Apocryphal Scriptures of the New Testament requires no super- natural authority to make it plain. The difference between the one and the other is patent to the most casual reader. Bishop Ellicott declares of the spurious Gospels as a whole that "their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their coarse- ness, the barbarities of their style and the inconsequence of their narratives, have never been excused or condoned. It would be hard to find any competent writer, in any age of the Church, who has been beguiled into saying anything civil or commendatory." Dr. Orr, who edits the volume of New Testa- ment Apocryphal writings which has lately appeared in the "Temple Classics," adds: " The same remarks apply as a rule to the [Apocryphal] Acts." To the reader of ordinary culture, how- ever, who takes up Dr. Orr's volume, and reads it for its literary interest, the addition he makes to Bishop Ellicott's dictum would seem somewhat sweeping. The Gospels of the Infancy deserve all that can be said against them, but surely the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" is a book with very real literary merits, whatever its religious defects. Most scholars, Dr. Orr tells us, believe it to be the book alluded to by Tertullian, who says that it was "the work of a presbyter of Asia, who, on being convicted of having falsely used Paul's name, and confessing that he had done it from love to Paul, was deposed from his office." If this is so, " its date dannot be much later than the middle of the second century." In spite of this admission and this punishment, Dr. Orr tells us that the Church Fathers unanimously assume that a basis of fact underlay the presbyter's invention. Renan regarded the description of Paul's personal appearance which the book contains as traditional, and follows it in " Les Apotres."
The story is full of delightfully human touches, and is worked out with the greatest skill. The reader is introduced at the outset to " a certain man, by name One- siphorus," who, "hearing that Paul had come to Iconium, went out to meet him in order that he might entertain him." As he walked he looked at the passers-by, hoping to recognise the Apostle by the description of Titus :—" And he saw Paul coming, a man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace. For sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel. And Paul, seeing Onesiphorus, smiled; and Onesiphorus said: Hail, 0 servant of the blessed God!" In the next scene we find the Christian Church meeting in a courtyard. Paul reasons of temperance and of the Resurrection, and is listened to by a young maiden called Thecla, who lives in one of the surrounding houses, and whose window gives upon the place. From here she watches the Saint, to the great concern of her mother, who, alarmed to see her thus preoccupied with the new doctrines, sends for Thamyris, to whom Thecla is be- trothed. This foreign teacher, she tells him, " will overturn the city of the Iconians, and thy Thecla too besides," for she, " tied to the window like a spider, lays hold of what is said by Paul with a strange eagerness and awful emotion." Thamyris goes up and kisses her, but Thecla does not turn round. Seized with sudden fury, Thamyris goes to the Proconsul and demands that some means should be taken to stop this preacher, who is, he declares, deprecating marriage and exalting celibacy. The Proconsul accordingly sends for Paul, being curious to hear more concerning his doctrine. St. Paul's defence is very fine, and quite in character. It might be inserted without too much incongruity into some of the defences preserved for us by St. Luke. " Since I am this day examined as to what I teach, listen, 0 proconsul: A living God, a God of retributions, a jealous God, a God in need of nothing, consulting for the salvation of men, has sent me that I may reclaim them from corruption and uncleanness, and from death, that they may not sin. Wherefore God sent His own Son, whom I preach, and in whom I teach men to rest their hope, who alone has had compassion upon a world led astray, that they may be no longer under judgment, 0 proconsul, but may have faith, and the fear of God, and the knowledge of holiness, and the love of truth. If, therefore, I teach what has been revealed to me by God, wherein do I do wrong P " The Proconsul sends the Apostle bound to prison till such time as he can hear him more attentively. We are told, however, that " Paul was afraid of nothing, but ordered his life in the confidence of God." Henceforward the story turns upon Thecla, and the writer's love of the marvellous somewhat destroys the beauty of his romance. She is twice condemned to suffer as a Christian, and twice miraculously escapes. The account of a vision in which, when bound to the stake, looking towards the crowd, " she saw the Lord sitting in the likeness of Paul, and said: As I am unable to endure my lot, Paul has come to see me," is a fine incident, but one in which human love and divine worship are, perhaps unintentionally, confused.
Another striking passage describes the conversion of Queen Tryphtena, a personage until quite recently imagined to be mythical, but whose coins lately found prove her to have really existed. As soon as she has accepted the Gospel she exclaims with joy : " Now I believe that the dead are raised ; now I believe that my child lives,"—an incident so natural and so much more convincing than any dissertation upon doctrine that we could easily believe it true. Thecla passes the latter part of her life as a hermit; but as an old woman she is seized with a desire to see once more the instrument of her conversion, so she "departed to Rome to see Paul, and found that he had fallen asleep." The poetry of things human and divine sounds in the ears of the Asiatic presbyter, and he seems to have been unable to distinguish the one strain from the other. No doubt be was rightly de- posed from his office; but seventeen hundred and fifty years after he wrote his book his readers must still feel sorry for him.
The inexplicable thing about the Apocryphal Gcspels which describe the infancy of our Lord is that not only do the incl. dents revolt our reason, but the actions ascribed to the child Christ revolt our conscience. The imaginary boy, whom we prefer not to call by the name of our Saviour, strikes those who provoke him with blindness, kills a boy who accidentally jostles him in the street, kills a schoolmaster who strikes him, and declares himself to be and always have been perfect. The extreme incongruity of the character thus described, and that of the child who "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man," seems at times even to strike the inventor of these repellent wonders, for he makes his hero occasionally repent himself and undo his mischief by another arbitrary but more benevolent use of power. Now and then we get a pretty picture to set beside these nauseous miracles. With the Divine Child, we are told, all beasts are tame; even the dragons adore Him, and wild beasts refused to hurt the ass which Mary rode in her flight into Egypt, or "the beasts of burden which carried their baggage." At first, we hear, " when Mary saw the lions and the panthers, and various kinds of wild beasts, coming about them, she was very much afraid. But the infant Jesus looked into her face with a joyful counte- nance, and said : Be not afraid, mother ; for they come not to do thee harm, but they make haste to serve both thee and me." Here, the writer tells us, was fulfilled what Isaiah foretold of the little child who should lead the beasts where they neither hurt nor destroy.
The first thing the reader feels as he lays aside this early medley of poetry, tradition, and nonsense is a strengthened faith in the truth of the Canonical Gospels and an increased sense of reverence for the reserve and simplicity of the Evangelists, whose works have been tried in the furnace of a criticism in face of which the Apocrypha has shrivelled like a parched scroll. They have stood, and, as Christians believe, will for ever stand, the hardest ordeal through which any religious teaching can pass, —the teat of coincidence with the "better mind" of man. To this test the writer of the Fourth Gospel submitted the words of the Baptist, and concluded that "he was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The Evangelist could have asked no higher position
even for himself than that of such a witness. This is the true position of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and it is impregnable.
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