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Gospels, but not as we know them

by
21 July 2009

This book reminds us of forgotten elements of the early faith, says Henry Wansbrough

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The Apocryphal Gospels: A very short introduction
Paul Foster
Oxford University Press £7.99
(978-0-19-923694-7)
Church Times Bookshop £7.20

INCLUDED a series of pocket-sized booklets from OUP, this excellent introduction is written with a lucidity and clarity that suit its purpose admirably. Dr Foster teaches at Edinburgh University, and is a specialist in the literature of early Christianity.

He begins with a discussion of both terms in the title. The term “Gospel” is derived from the im­perial cult as well as from the Old Testament, and is legitimately used far more widely than in reference to the four canonical Gospels of the Christian Church. “Apocryphal” is an ancient misnomer, which is used simply to distinguish these writings from the canonical Gospels.

Then comes an exciting chapter on that ferment of religious ideas in second-century Christianity which used to be lumped together under the term “Gnosticism”; these movements do share some tendencies, but also differ widely among themselves. The discovery of the documents, mostly in excava-tions in Egypt during the past century, has immeasurably enlarged our knowledge of early Christianity.

History is written by the winners, in this case those who promoted the branch of Christianity that began to be considered orthodoxy from the time of Irenaeus at the end of the second century. The discovery of these documents shows the great diversity that subsequently withered away.

On this basis, a wide range of writings is introduced individually: their discovery, their content, and their importance. There is even room for some of the more frag­mentary discoveries, such as the challenging Papyrus Egerton 2 and Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840, not to mention the intriguing Jewish-Christian Gospels that emerged in Alexandria. Their theological tendencies and preoccupations are sympathetically examined. Few of these Gospels can be claimed as telling us anything about the historical Jesus, but they tell us a great deal about the second-century Christianity from which they spring.

Didactically, this book is a model. The writing is clear and crisp, the assessments are trenchant and sober. Each chapter concludes with a summing-up that admirably brings out the principal points of interest, and a window is opened on to the traces of long-forgotten Christianities that are significantly different from our faith of today.

Dom Henry Wansbrough is a monk of Ampleforth, Emeritus Master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and a Member of the Pope’s Biblical Commission.

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