Lost scriptures: books that did not make it into the New Testament (62 page)

to you, observe, worshipping God

the Greeks . . . showing that we and the

through Christ in a new way. For we have

notable Greeks worship the same God,

found in the Scriptures, how the Lord

though not according to perfect knowlsaid, ‘Behold, I make with you a new edge for they had not learned the tradicovenant, not as the covenant with your tion of the Son.” “Do not,” he says,

fathers in mount Horeb.’1 He has made a

“worship”—he does not say “the God

new one with us: for the ways of the

whom the Greeks worship,” but “not in

Greeks and Jews are old, but we are

the manner of the Greeks”: he would

Christians who worship him in a new

change the method of worship of God,

way as a third generation.”

not proclaim another God. What, then,

is meant by “not in the manner of the

Greeks”? Peter himself will explain, for

Clement
of
Alexandra
Strom.
6.5.43

he continues, “Carried away by ignorance and not knowing God as we do, 3

according to the perfect knowledge, but

Therefore Peter says that the Lord

said to the apostles, “If then any of

shaping those things over which he gave

Israel will repent and believe in God

them power for their use, wood and

through my name, his sins shall be forstones, brass and iron, gold and silver, given him: and after twelve years go out

forgetting their material and proper use,

into the world, lest any say, ‘We did not

they set up things subservient to their

hear’.”

existence and worship them; and what

things God has given them for food, the

fowls of the air and the creatures that

Clement
of
Alexandria
Strom.
6.6.48

swim in the sea and creep on the earth,

wild beasts and four-footed cattle of the

4

field, weasels too and mice, cats and

For example, in the Preaching of

Peter the Lord says, “I chose you

dogs and apes; even their own foodtwelve, judging you to be disciples worstuffs do they sacrifice to animals that thy of me, whom the Lord willed, and

can be consumed and, offering dead

thinking you faithful apostles I sent you

things to the dead as if they were gods,

into the world to preach the gospel to

they show ingratitude to God since by

people throughout the world, that they

these practices they deny that he exshould know that there is one God; to ists. . . .” He continues again in this

fashion, “Neither worship him as the

Jews do for they, who suppose that they

alone know God, do not know him,

1Jer 31:31–32

238

NON-CANONICAL EPISTLES AND RELATED WRITINGS

declare by faith in me [the Christ] what

John
of
Damascus,
Parall.
A 12

shall be, so that those who have heard

and believed may be saved, and that those

6

who have not believed may hear and bear

(Of Peter): Wretched that I am, I

remembered not that God sees the

witness, not having any defence so as to

mind and observes the voice of the soul.

say, ‘We did not hear.’ . . .”

Allying myself with sin, I said to myself,

And to all reasonable souls it has been

“God is merciful, and will bear with me;

said above: Whatever things any of you

and because I was not immediately smitdid in ignorance, not knowing God ten, I ceased not, but rather despised parclearly, all his sins shall be forgiven him, don, and exhausted the long-suffering of

if he comes to God and repents.

God.”

(From the Teaching of Peter): Rich is

the man who has mercy on many, and,

Clement
of
Alexandria

imitating God, gives what he has. For

Strom.
6.15.128

God has given all things to all his creation. Understand then, you rich, that you 5 Peter in the Preaching, speaking of ought to minister, for you have received the apostles, says, “But, having

more than you yourselves need. Learn

opened the books of the prophets which

that others lack the things you have in

we had, we found, sometimes expressed

superfluity. Be ashamed to keep things

by parables, sometimes by riddles, and

that belong to others. Imitate the fairness

sometimes directly and in so many words

of God, and no one will be poor.

the name Jesus Christ, both his coming

and his death and the cross and all the

other torments which the Jews inflicted

Origen,
de
Principiis
i,
prol.
8

on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem 7

was founded, all these things that had

But if any would produce to us

from that book which is called The

been written, what he must suffer and

Doctrine of Peter, the passage where

what shall be after him. When, therefore,

the Saviour is represented as saying to

we gained knowledge of these things, we

the disciples, “I am not a bodiless

believed in God through that which had

demon,” . . .

been written of him.”

And a little after he adds that the

prophecies came by divine providence, in

Gregory
of
Nazianaus,

these terms, “For we know that God com

epp.
16
and
20

manded them, and without the Scripture

we say nothing.”

8 “A soul in trouble is near to God,”

as Peter says somewhere—a marvellous utterance.

Pseudo-Titus

The Letter now known as “Pseudo-Titus” is later than most of the other apocrypha included in this collection. It was unknown until discovered late in the nineteenth century in a very badly translated Latin manuscript produced some time in the eighth century, probably from a Greek original.

The author claims to be Titus, the companion of Paul, to whom one of the letters of the New Testament itself is addressed. This alleged connection with the apostle provides the writer with the authority he needs to set forth his clear agenda: to promote chastity for all Christians, urging even those who are married to abstain from the pleasures of sex as detrimental to salvation. “Why,” asks the pseudonymous author, “do you strive against your own salvation to find death in love?”

The author quotes numerous sources, including the books of the Old and New Testaments, in support of his views. In particular, though, he appears to be familiar with the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, which, as we have seen, are themselves ascetic and world-denouncing in their orientation.

It is difficult to date this strident attack against the pleasures of the flesh, but most scholars place it some time in the fifth century.

Epistle
of
Titus,
the
Disciple
of
Paul
race incomparable and incomprehensible.

Great and honorable is the divine

Blessed then are those who have not

promise which the Lord has made with

polluted their flesh by craving for this

his own mouth to them that are holy and

world, but are dead to the world that they

pure: He will bestow upon them “what

may live for God! To whom neither flesh

eyes have not seen nor ears heard, nor

nor blood has shown deadly secrets, but

has it entered into any human heart.” And

the Spirit has shone upon them and

from eternity to eternity there will be a

shown some better thing so that even in

Translation by Aurelio de Santos Otero, in Wilhelm Schneemelcher,
New
Testament
Apocrypha,
vol. 2 (rev. ed.; Cambridge/ Louisville: Lutterworth/Westminister/John Knox, 1991) 55–63; used with permission.

239

240

NON-CANONICAL EPISTLES AND RELATED WRITINGS

this � . . . � and instant of our �pilgrim-

with thee. Thou despisest God, whilst

age on the earth� they may display an

striving to please a man.

angelic appearance. As the Lord says,

Wherefore contemplate the footprints

“Such are to be called angels.”1

of our ancestors! Consider the daughter

Those then who are not defiled with

of Jephthah: willing to do what had been

women2 he calls an angelic host. Those

promised by her father and vowing her

who have not abandoned themselves to

own self as a sacrifice to the Lord, she

men, he calls virgins, as the apostle of

first manifested her connection with God

Christ says: “the unmarried think day and

and took other virgins with her “that in

night on godly things,”3 i.e. to act propthe mountains throughout sixty days they erly and to please Him alone, and not to

might bewail her virginity.”7 O luminous

deny by their doings what they have

secrets which disclose the future in adpromised in words. Why should a virgin vance! Virgin is joined with virgin, and

who is already betrothed to Christ be

in love to her she bewails the peril of her

united with a carnal man?

flesh until the day of her reward comes!

It is not lawful to cling to a man and

Rightly does he say “sixty days,” since

to serve him more than God. Virgin!

he means the sixtyfold reward of holiness

Thou hast cast off Christ, to whom thou

which the ascetic can gain through many

wert betrothed! Thou has separated thypains, according to the teaching of the self from Him, thou who strivest to reapostle: “Let us not lose courage, he says, main united to another! O beauteous

in the hardest labours, in affliction, in

maidenhood, at the last thou art stuck fast

grief, in suffering abuse: we suffer perin love to a male being! O (holy) ascetic secution, but we are not forsaken, bestate, thou disappearest (when) the saints cause we bear in our body the passion of

match human offences!

Christ. Wherefore we are by no means

O body, thou art put to the yoke of the

overcome.”8 And again the same apostle

law of God, and ever and again commit-

left an example behind him, describing

test fornication! Thou art crucified to this

his own disasters and saying: “I have

world,4 and continuest to act up to it! If

labored much, I have frequently been imthe apostle Paul forbade communion to a prisoned, I have suffered extremely many

woman caught in an adulterous relation

floggings, I have often fallen into deadly

with a strange man,5 how much more

peril. Of the Jews, he says, I have five

when those concerned are saints deditimes received forty stripes save one, cated to Christ! Thou art caught in the

three times have I been beaten with rods,

vile fellowship of this world, and yet

once have I been stoned; thrice have I

regardest thyself as worthy of the blood

suffered shipwreck, a day and a night I

of Christ or as united with his body! But

have spent in the depth of the sea; I have

this is not the case: if thou eat of the flesh

often journeyed, often been in peril of

of the Lord unworthily, then thou takest

rivers in peril of robbers, in peril among

vainly instead of life the fire of thine

everlasting punishment! O virgin: if thou

strivest to please (another), then thou hast

already committed a sin of volition, for

1Mark 12: 25 par. 2Rev 14:4. 31 Cor 7:34. 4Cf.

the Evangelist says: “one cannot serve

Gal 6:14. 5This happening is recorded in detail in the

two masters, for he obeys the one, and

Actus Petri cum Simone. The name of the woman

concerned is there given as Rufina. 6Matt 6:24.

despises the other.”6 O virgin! so is it also

7Jdg. 11:38. 82 Cor 4:8ff.

PSEUDO-TITUS

241

unbelievers in manifold ways, in peril in

the following account informs us: “A

cities, in peril among Gentiles, in peril in

peasant had a girl who was a virgin. She

the wilderness, in peril among false

was also his only daughter, and therefore

brethren; in trouble and labor, frequently

he besought Peter to offer a prayer for

in sorrow, in many watchings, in hunger

her. After he had prayed, the apostle said

and thirst, in many fastings, in cold and

to the father that the Lord would bestow

nakedness, in inward anxieties, besides

upon her what was expedient for her soul.