




                       The Lost and Hostile Gospels

                                 An Essay

 On the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First
                Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain.

                                    By

                        Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A.

Author of "The Origin and Development of Religious Belief," "Legendary
Lives of the Old Testament Characters." Etc.

                           Williams and Norgate

                            London, Edinburgh

                                   1874





CONTENTS


Preface.
Part I. The Jewish Anti-Gospels.
   I. The Silence Of Josephus.
   II. The Cause Of The Silence Of Josephus.
   III. The Jew Of Celsus.
   IV. The Talmud.
   V. The Counter-Gospels.
   VI. The First Toledoth Jeschu.
   VII. The Second Toledoth Jeschu.
Part II. The Lost Petrine Gospels.
   I. The Gospel Of The Hebrews.
      1. The Fragments extant.
      2. Doubtful Fragments.
      3. The Origin of the Gospel of the Hebrews.
   II. The Clementine Gospel.
   III. The Gospel Of St. Peter.
   IV. The Gospel Of The Egyptians.
Part III. The Lost Pauline Gospels.
   I. The Gospel Of The Lord.
   II. The Gospel Of Truth.
   III. The Gospel Of Eve.
   IV. The Gospel Of Perfection.
   V. The Gospel Of St. Philip.
   VI. The Gospel Of Judas.
Footnotes






                               [Cover Art]

[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]





PREFACE.


It is advisable, if not necessary, for me, by way of preface, to explain
certain topics treated of in this book, which do not come under its title,
and which, at first thought, may be taken to have but a remote connection
with the ostensible subject of this treatise. These are:

1. The outbreak of Antinomianism which disfigured and distressed primitive
Christianity.

2. The opposition of the Nazarene Church to St. Paul.

3. The structure and composition of the Synoptical Gospels.

The consideration of these curious and important topics has forced its way
into these pages; for the first two throw great light on the history of
those Gospels which have disappeared, and which it is not possible to
reconstruct without a knowledge of the religious parties to which they
belonged. And these parties were determined by the fundamental question of
Law or No-law, as represented by the Petrine and ultra-Pauline Christians.
And the third of these topics necessarily bound up with the consideration
of the structure and origin of the Lost Gospels, as the reader will see if
he cares to follow me in the critical examination of their extant
fragments.

Upon each of these points a few preliminary words will not, I hope, come
amiss, and may prevent misunderstanding.

1. The history of the Church, as the history of nations, is not to be read
with prejudiced eyes, with penknife in hand to erase facts which fight
against foregone conclusions.

English Churchmen have long gazed with love on the Primitive Church as the
ideal of Christian perfection, the Eden wherein the first fathers of their
faith walked blameless before God, and passionless towards each other. To
doubt, to dissipate in any way this pleasant dream, may shock and pain
certain gentle spirits. Alas! the fruit of the tree of {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, if it opens
the eyes, saddens also and shames the heart.

History, whether sacred or profane, hides her teaching from those who
study her through  glasses. She only reveals truth to those who
look through the cold clear medium of passionless inquiry, who seek the
Truth without determining first the masquerade in which alone they will
receive it.

It exhibits a strange, a sad want of faith in Truth thus to constrain
history to turn out facts according to order, to squeeze it through the
sieve of prejudice. And what indeed is Truth in history but the voice of
God instructing the world through the vices, follies, errors of the past?

A calm, patient spirit of inquiry is an attitude of the modern mind alone.
To this mind History has made strange disclosures which she kept locked up
through former ages. The world of Nature lay before the men of the past,
but they could not, would not read it, save from left to right, or right
to left, as their prejudices ran. The wise and learned had to cast aside
their formulae, and sit meekly at the feet of Nature, as little