Spurious / pseudonymous
1st–4th c. · 2nd c. · 45 works
In Orthodox and broader Christian usage, the "New Testament apocrypha" are early Christian writings that imitate the forms of canonical Scripture—gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses—yet were never received into the canon of the Church. The word "apocryphal" originally meant "hidden" or "secret," applied both to esoteric Gnostic traditions and, by the fourth century, to books not read publicly in the churches; only by implication did it come to mean spurious or fictitious. Nearly all these works are pseudepigraphal, circulated under the names of apostles or other figures said to know the life and teaching of Christ. They are emphatically not canonical Scripture, and the Church distinguished them from the inspired books from an early date.
These writings span the second through the later patristic centuries and arise from varied milieus. Some, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Judas, emerged from Gnostic and other sects later judged heretical, marked by an excess of the miraculous and esoteric, secret teaching. Others were more popular than doctrinal in aim, filling the silences of the canonical gospels with legends of the infancy of Christ, the lives of the apostles, and the death of the Virgin. The diversity of date, origin, and orthodoxy means the collection cannot be treated as a single body of belief.
Representative works illustrate the range. The Protevangelium of James (second century) recounts the birth, Temple childhood, and betrothal of Mary and reflects very early Marian veneration; the infancy gospels, including the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the later Pseudo-Matthew, narrate childhood miracles of Jesus. The apocryphal acts—the Acts of Paul (whose author reportedly confessed to composing it "out of love for Paul"), the Acts of Peter, and others—relate the deeds and martyrdoms of the apostles, while the Apocalypse of Peter offers vivid visions of heaven and hell. Bishops such as Serapion of Antioch tested these books and rejected those, like the Gospel of Peter, whose teaching about Christ proved false.
Despite their non-canonical and sometimes heterodox character, several of these texts shaped later Christian piety, art, and liturgical commemoration. The Protevangelium of James, in particular, lies behind the feasts of the Conception and Nativity of the Theotokos and her Entrance into the Temple, and supplied artists with the cast of the Nativity—the cave, the two midwives, the ox and ass at the manger. Infancy and dormition traditions likewise furnished iconographers with scenes the canonical gospels left untold. The Church drew devotional and artistic nourishment from this material while never granting it the authority of Scripture.
Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica — New Testament Apocrypha · Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent) — Apocrypha · Encyclopedia.com — Apocrypha, Iconography of the