Apocrypha (hidden, secret, secret) — a work that was not included in the number of canonical books of the Old and New Testaments approved by church councils.
The concept of “apocrypha” initially referred to the works of Gnosticism, which sought to keep its teachings secret, and later the term “apocrypha” was attributed to early Christian texts (various gospels, messages, revelations) that were not recognized as “divinely inspired” by the Christian church and were not included in the biblical canon .
The Apocrypha of both the New and Old Testaments is prohibited from reading in church. Clergymen who use them to read in church are defrocked by the Christian Church. However, the content of the apocrypha often became the Holy Tradition of the Christian Church. Thus, according to Vladimir Lossky, the source of Holy Tradition can also be Christian apocrypha: “The Church knows how to extract from them what can complete and illustrate events about which Scripture is silent, but which Tradition considers reliable.”
Apocrypha in Christianity.
Patriarch and canonist Theodore Balsamon wrote about apocryphal books: “there are also some other books called apocryphal, but in fact they are full of false dogmas.
According to the definition of the “Church Dictionary” by P. A. Alekseev (St. Petersburg, 1817), these are “hidden, that is, books published unknown from whom, or that are not publicly read in the church, as the Holy Scripture is usually read. Such books are all those that are not in the Bible.”
There are apocrypha that generally diverge from traditional Christian doctrine, but individual elements from them have been included in iconography and liturgical texts: for example, the late apocrypha, which is called the “Proto-Gospel of James,” is not recognized by the Church as inspired scripture and was rejected by the Ecumenical Councils, but some of the texts from it Much later, in the 8th-9th centuries, in a retold form it entered hagiography, hymnography, and was reflected even later, starting from the 9th-10th centuries, in icon painting. Most of the feasts of the Mother of God — the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the Entry into the Temple, and partly the Annunciation (this is reflected in the iconography) are built on the Proto-Gospel of James. The liturgical texts of the Feast of the Assumption are based on a retelling of the late (VI-VII centuries) apocrypha. The inclusion of some apocryphal stories in hymnography or hagiography occurred due to the long struggle against the apocrypha and the long-term displacement of them by the Church.
In the East, the reception of conciliar condemnation of the apocrypha occurred only in the middle of the 9th century; in the West only in the 16th century. The Greek hymnography of the feasts of the Mother of God was written in the 8th-9th centuries, at a time when there was no general church condemnation of the apocrypha and hymnographers, such as John of Damascus and Cosmas of Mayum, retold the later apocrypha in poetic form and included them in liturgical texts. The iconography of the 9th-10th centuries and subsequent centuries is an illustration of the same hymnography of the 8th-9th centuries, for this reason the apocrypha is reflected in the iconography.
The fight against the apocrypha before the birth of Christ.
Apocryphal books arose before Christianity. Soon after the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, the Old Testament priest Ezra made an attempt to collect (and separate from the false apocrypha) all the holy books, then still scattered and partially lost. With his assistants, Ezra managed to find, correct, translate into his contemporary language, supplement and systematize 39 books (in the Tanakh of the Jewish tradition they were combined into 22 books — according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet).
Those apocryphal books that contradicted the selected books and diverged from the traditions of the Old Testament legend, carried a trace of the influence of pagan myths and superstitions of neighboring peoples, and contained occult practices and magical spells, as well as books that did not have religious value (household, entertainment) , childish, educational, love, and other nature), were strictly eliminated in advance (sometimes mercilessly destroyed) and were not included in the Old Testament, and later in the Christian Bible. Later, some of these apocrypha nevertheless became part of the Talmud. Kabbalah also abounds in apocrypha.
The problem with non-canonical books.
After the death of Ezra, his followers — zealots of piety — continued the search for the sacred writings begun by Ezra, and those books that were found relevant, and those that were written in subsequent centuries (for example, the Maccabees), were recognized by them as inspired. But the rigor and meticulousness of the selection, as well as the indisputable authority and traditions of Ezra, did not allow innovations to be introduced into the established canon of the Holy Books. And only in a freer and more enlightened Alexandria, where there was a rich library of antiquity, when translating the Old Testament books into Greek, 70 Jewish interpreters and translators (Septuagint, from the Latin Interpretatio Septuaginta Seniorum “translation of the seventy elders”), after deep study and fervent prayers and discussions, 11 more books were added (to the Greek text) to the previous 39 books. It was this version — the Septuagint — that became the main one for Christians who spoke predominantly Greek in the first centuries of Christianity.
Later, when Protestants, using ancient handwritten originals, began to translate the Bible into modern national languages, they discovered the absence of these 11 books in all Jewish texts and hastened to declare these books apocrypha (although they did not prohibit them, but only declared them of little importance). It should be noted that even some canonical books (for example, Martin Luther called the Epistle of the Apostle James “straw”), which do not confirm Protestant teachings, raise doubts among them.
These 11 “non-canonical” or deuterocanonical, that is, not included in the original canon of Ezra, are revered in Orthodoxy in the same way as all the canonical books of the Bible. Even during public worship they are read in proverbs along with the canonical ones. Nowadays, thanks to the successes of biblical archeology, Jewish texts previously considered lost have also become known for some books.
The fight against the apocrypha after the Nativity of Christ.
Already the early church was faced with an even greater need to separate the canonical biblical books from various alternative apocryphal treatises composed at different times and by different people. Some of them were written by completely pious, although naive and insufficiently educated, people who wanted to explain and supplement the Holy Scriptures in their own way. (So, for example, the “Walk of the Virgin Mary through Torment” describes the descent of the Mother of God into hell and then Her representation before the throne of the Son.) Other apocrypha were born in various widespread early Christian sects and local churches, heretical movements and in Gnosticism using Christian themes.
There were also authors who deliberately, ostensibly on behalf of the apostles revered in Christianity, composed and distributed “epistles” that discredited the official Church, which, in their opinion, concealed the originally true teaching. Therefore, traditional communities of Christians at all times tried to defend the purity of their faith, and at all times, at councils, they compiled lists of renounced books — prohibited apocryphal and openly heretical writings — which were forbidden to be read, published, and which were sought and destroyed (torn, burned, or from parchments prohibited apocryphal and heretical texts were cleared/washed away and other palimpsests were written).
The Church includes 27 New Testament books in the canon of sacred books, which are recognized as inspired books, which, according to the Church, were written directly by the apostles — the witnesses of Christ. The composition of the New Testament canon is fixed by the 85th Apostolic Canon. Together with the books of the Old Testament, they form the Christian Bible, which contains 66 canonical and 11 deuterocanonical books, differences in the inclusion of these 11 books can be found in the Orthodox version and the Catholic version. It is all these inspired books that are considered the main authoritative source on matters of sacred history and dogma in the main Christian denominations.
Beginning in the 1st century, a gradual displacement of the apocrypha from the Church began, and ultimately the apocrypha was rejected by the Church. But this process was very long. For example, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his book Ecclesiastical History, divided books into three categories: canonical books; allowed for reading; to «renounced». The Decretum Gelasianum, written between 519 and 553, laid out an index of «true and false» writings.
The issue of attitude towards the apocrypha was decided at councils and special canons against the apocrypha were adopted. For example, rules 59 and 60 of the Council of Laodicea: “59. It is not appropriate in church to read psalms that are not consecrated or books that are not defined by the rules, but only the books of the Old and New Testaments designated in the rules. 60. It is proper to read these books of the Old Testament:
1. The existence of the world.
2. Exodus from Egypt.
3. Leviticus.
4. Numbers.
5. Deuteronomy.
6. Joshua.
7. Judges, Ruth.
8. Esther.
9. Kings, first and second.
10. Kings, third and fourth.
11. Chronicles, first and second.
12. Esdras, first and second.
13. The Book of One Hundred and Fifty Psalms.
14. Proverbs of Solomon.
15. Ecclesiastes.
16. Song of Songs.
17. Job.
18. Twelve Prophets.
19. Isaiah.
20. Jeremiah, Baruch lamentation and message.
21. Ezekiel.
22. Daniel.
of the New Testament
— There are four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; The Acts of the Apostles, these seven Council Epistles: James — one. Peter — two, John — three, Jude — one; Paul’s epistles are fourteen: to the Romans — one, to the Corinthians — two, to the Galatians — one, to the Ephesians — one, to the Philippians — one, to the Colossians — one, to Thessalonians — two. to the Hebrews — one, to Timothy — two, to Titus — one, and to Philemon — one.
«and the 33rd rule of the Council of Carthage: «It was decreed that nothing should be read in the church under the name of the Divine Scriptures, except the canonical writings….».
The Council of Laodicea and the Council of Carthage were local councils; their decisions could not apply to the entire Church. For this reason, the rules adopted by them regarding the apocrypha were not church-wide. In 691-692, Emperor Justinian II organized and headed the Council of Trullo, a large local council of eastern hierarchs, where the canonical authority of the 85 Apostolic Rules, the Council of Laodicea, and the Council of Carthage was established. In the West, the decrees of the Council of Trullo were not accepted in the 7th century; and the decisions of the Trullo Council, including regarding the apocrypha, remained throughout the Church not as determinations of an ecumenical council, but as determinations of one of the many local councils.
The reception of the decisions of the Trullo Council dragged on for many years. In 787, at the Second Council of Nicaea, which approved the veneration of icons, the rules of the Council of Trullo were considered as decisions of the Third Council of Constantinople. However, in the West, the decisions of the Third Council of Constantinople were rejected, and in the East, icon veneration very soon gave way to iconoclasm; the final restoration of icon veneration, and with it the recognition of the decisions of the Trullo Council on the Apocrypha, occurred only in 843 at the Council of Constantinople. The year 843 can be considered the year of the final reception of the decisions of the Trullo Council in the East, including the conciliar final rejection of the apocrypha. In 883, the rules concerning the apocrypha were published in the Nomocanon of Photius as general church rules.
In the West, the dogma of icon veneration, approved by the Third Council of Constantinople, was accepted. But the resolutions of the Trullo Council, including the resolutions on the apocrypha, were never adopted. The acceptance of the Biblical canon and the rejection of the apocrypha in the West occurred in 1546 at the Council of Trent.
The ancient apocrypha that have survived to this day have not only historical significance, but to some extent also dialectical, since they reflect the views of Christians of the first centuries.
The apocrypha includes the so-called Old Testament apocrypha, apocryphal Gospels, alternative texts of the Acts of the Apostles, Apocalypses, etc., as well as alternative biographies of saints recognized by the Church. The writings of the Fathers of the Church, liturgical texts, lives of saints and other texts classified as Sacred Tradition by the Catholic, Orthodox and Ancient Eastern churches do not belong to the apocrypha.
Apocrypha is also composed in our time, when various sects, “elders”, soothsayers and “miracle workers” compose and distribute religious literature that interprets in their own way the history and principles of Christian doctrine.
Old Testament Apocrypha.
The Old Testament apocrypha usually includes the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Psalms of Solomon. All of them were written in the Hellenistic period after the codification of the Old Testament by Ezra, but they are distinguished from the deuterocanonical books because of their claim to a mysterious (esoteric) meaning.
