By the publication of this volume, the Editor conceives he has rendered an acceptable service to the theological student and the ecclesiastical antiquary; he has endeavoured to render it more gratifying to the reader, and

from the beginning of Christianity, the ancients would have eagerly seized it, inserted it in their creeds, quoted it repeatedly against the heretics, and selected it for the brightest ornament of every book that they wrote upon the subject of the Trinity. In short, if this verse be really genuine, notwithstanding its absence from ail the visible Greek MSS. except two, one of which awkwardly translates the verse from the Latin, and the other transcribes it from a printed book; notwithstanding its absence from all the versions except the vulgate; and even from many of the best and oldest MSS. of the vulgate; notwithstanding the deep and dead silence of all the Greek writers down to the thirteenth, and most of the Latins down to the middle of the eight century; if, in spite of all these objections, it be still genuine, no part of Scripture whatsoever can be proved either spurious or genuine; and Satan has been permitted, for many centuries, miraculously to banish the finest passage in the N.T. from the eyes and memories of almost all the Christian authors, translators, and transcribers.*

Sir Isaac Newton observes, "that what the Latins have done to this ext (1 John v. 7), the Greeks have done to that of St. Paul (Timothy, ii. 16.) For by changing o into the abbreviation of Ocos,, they now read, Great is the mystery of Godliness: GOD manifested in the flesh: whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome, as well as the rest, read, “Great is the mystery of godliness which was manifested in the flesh." Sir Isaac gives a list of authors, who, he says, wrote, all of them, in the fourth and fifth centuries for the Deity of the Son, and incarnation of God; and some of them largely, and in several tracts; and yet,” he says, “I can not find that they ever allege this text to prove it, excepting that Gregory Nyssent once urges it, (if the passage crept not into him out of some marginal annotation). In all the times of the hot and lasting Arian controversy, it never came into play; though now these disputes are over, they that read God made manifest in the flesh, think Sir Isaac says, one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for the business."

66

There are other interpolations and corruptions of passages in the New Testament, but the Editor perceives that the few observations he has hastily collected and thrown together in this note, have already extended it to undue length, and it must here close.

* Porson's Letters to Travis, 8vo. p. 402.

+ Orat. xi. Contra Eunom

X.

He

more convenient for reference, by arranging the books into chapters, and dividing the chapters into verses. has only to add, that the lover of old literature will here find the obscure but unquestionable crigin of several remarkable relations in the Golden Legend, the Lives of the Saints, and similar productions, concerning the birth of the Virgin, her marriage with Joseph, on the budding of his rod, the nativity of Jesus, the miracles of His Infancy, His labouring with Joseph at the carpentry trade, and the actions of His followers. Several of the papal pageants for the populace, and the monkish mysteries performed as dramas at Chester, Coventry, Newcastle, and in other parts of England, are almost verbatim representations of the stories. Many valuable pictures by the best masters-prints by the early engravers, particularly of the Italian and German schools-woodcuts in early black letter, and black books-and illumination of missals and monastic MSS.-receive immediate elucidation on referring to the Apocryphal New Testament, and are without explanation from any other source.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

ALTHOUGH THE Apocryphal NEW TESTAMENT was put out without pretensor or ostentatious announcement, or even solicitude for its fate, yet a large Edi tion has been sold in a few months. The Public demanding another, to this Second Edition a small fragment of the Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, accidentally omitted, has been added : it forms the fifth chapter of that Epistle. There is, likewise annexed, a Table of the years wherein all the Books of the NEW TESTAMENT are stated to have been written to the "Order of the Books of the APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT," the authorities from whence they have been taken are affixed; and, finally, many errors in the nu merous scriptural references subjoined in the notes to the Epistles have been corrected. These are the only material variations from the first Edition.

It escaped the Editor to notice that the legends of the Koran and the Hindoo Mythology are considerably connected with this volume. Many of the acts and miracles ascribed to the Indian God, Creeshna, during his incarnation, are precisely the same with those attributed to Christ in his infancy, by the Apocryphal Gospels, and are largely particularised by the Rev. Thomas Maurice in his learned History of Hindostan.

Reference to the preceding Preface will leave little doubt that the Apocryphal writings formed an interesting portion of the lay, as well as the monkish literature of our forefathers. There is a Translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus almost coeval with the origin of printing in England; (a) and ancient MSS. of the Gospels of the Infancy are still extant in the Welsh language under the title of Mabinogi Jesu Grist.

(a) It was printed, in quarto, first by Wynkyn de Morde in 1509; next by John Skot in 1525; by the same printer subsequently; and several times after

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

xiii.

Concerning any genuineness of any portion of the work, the Editor has not offered an opinion, nor is it necessary that he should. The brief notice at the head of each Gospel directs the reader to its source, and will assist him to inquire further, and form an opinion for himself. Yet respecting the Epistles, which commence at page 91, and occupy the remaining two-thirds of the volume, the Editor would call attention to Archbishop Wake's testimony. The pious and learned Prelate says, that these Epistles (a) are a full and perfect collection of “all the genuine writings that remain to us of the Apostolic Fathers, and carry on the antiquity of the Church from the time of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament to about a hundred and fifty years after Christ; that except the Holy Scriptures, there is nothing remaining of the truly genuine Christian antiquity more early; (b) that they contain all that can with any certainty be depended upon of the most Primitive Fathers, (c) who had not only the advantage of living in the apostolical times, of hearing the Holy Apostles, and conversing with them, but were most of them persons of a very eminent character in the church too: (d) that we cannot with any reason doubt of what they deliver to us as the Gospel of Christ, but ought to receive it, if not with equal veneration, yet but a little less respect than we do the Sacred Writings of those who were their masters and instructors:" and, "if," says the Archbishop, (who translated these Epistles), (e) “it shall be asked how I came to choose the drudgery of a translator, rather than the more ingenious part of publishing somewhat of my own composing, it was, in short, this; because I hoped that such writings as these would find a more general and unprejudiced acceptance with all sorts of men than anything that could be written by any one now living."

As a literary curiosity, the work has attracted much notice; as throwing a light upon the arts of design and engraving, it has already been useful to the painter, and the collector of pictures and prints; and, as relating to theology, it has induced various speculations and inquiry.

But the Editor has been charged with expressing too little veneration for the councils of the Church. He feels none. It is true that respecting the three hundred Bishops assembled at the council of Nice, the Emperor Coustantine (ƒ) says, that what was approved by these Bishops could be nothing less than the determination of God himself; since the Holy Spirit residing in such great and worthy souls, unfolded to them the divine will. (g) Yet Sabinus, the Bishop of Heraclea, affirms, that, "excepting Constantine himself, and Eusebius Pamphi lus, they were a set of illiterate simple creatures, that understood nothing ;" and l'appus seems to have estimated them very low, for in his Synodicon to that council, he tells us, that having "promiscuously put all the books that were re

(a) Abp. Wake's Apostolical Fathers, Bagster's Edition, 8vo, 1817, Prelim. Do p. 120. (b) Abp. Wake's Apostolical Fathers, Bagster's Edition, 8vo, Prelim. Disc. p. 120 p. 126. (d) p 128. p. 155.

Socrates, Schol. Eccl. Hist. b. i. 9

(y) Ibid c. 9.