Secret books of the bible

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continued from Post #20. The Church Fathers held that the true Israel was not the Jews who had rejected Jesus, but the Church, whose scripture was the LXX.

This tention between Jews and Christians (both claiming to be the true Israel) greatly effected those Jewish Leaders who met a Jema (forgive the spelling) around 100 CE to reject the LXX by developing the criteria for inspired books. Pretty much it said that the books had to be of Hebrew origin, written, I think, before the time of Ezra, and it had to come out of Palestine and there were some other criteria I cannot remember.

But with the growing tention between Christian and Jews over the next few centuries, the LXX fell out of usage even by Greek speaking Jews.

The reason why there’s a difference between the Orthodox and Latin canon is that much to many people’s surprize, the Council rejected a couple of works from the LXX that were used even in the West but remains in the Orthodox Christian Canon - sorry I can’t remember which books they were.

In another Post I will talk about the non canonical books of the NT, these I think are the main secret books of your question.
 
I think what you may be calling secret books of the NT, weren’t so much a secret, rather, they were not accepted by the Church and and eventually disregarded and lost until recently (last 100 years or so.) especially in Egypt. Please note: at the times I with be talking about the Church was ONE and the Eastern Rite Greek speaking Church(s) and the the Western Latin Speaking Church were one.

What we know today as the Canonical Books of the NT, did take some time to be finalized but by the end of the 4th century or beginning of the 5th, the Canon was pretty much established and those secret books discarded.

There are amoung other reasons several factors I would like to focus on. First, what gave the motivation for creating a Canon and finding these other books non-inspired were the heresies that developed especially during the post apostolic period and the Patristic times.

I was taught a long time ago that all heresies can find in their root a denial of the Incarnation. All heresies in one way or another denied either Jesus’ divinity or His Humanity.
The 4 Gospels we hold as Canonical have as their underlying principle that God became Man there is no denial of the Incarnation, rather, in these writings we find the Incarnation revealed and most importantly revealed in the Paschal Mystery.

The Secret Books however doesn’t contained this. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, clearly shows the gnostic influence of the Coptic Church, and this is the area in which the Gospel of Thomas was re-discovered.

All of the non-canonical books that we know of, indicate that they came from communities already rejected by the Church or at the Church’s outer most fringe, again by their denying or not addressing the reality of Christ’s Humanity and Divinity. Some of these books, especially the older writings we have, came from those Christian communities that were jewish in origin but couldn’t accept the Divinity of Jesus. The others, mostly gentile in origin denied Christ Humanity. Although, most weren’t mentioned specifically, these writings seem to have been know by the Church Fathers and rejected.

I did see it mention that the 4 Gospels themselves quoted these other sources. The passages are similar but I doubt that the 4 Gospels were quoting them. Rather, it seems that these other gospels were being developed at the same time as the Canonical Gospels and many scholars believe that instead of quoting these gospel the 4 Gospels were using a common source. This has led to much debate as whether or not the common source(s) were from oral traditions or written traditions (commonly called the Q source)
 
The Canon of the NT was established by the Councils of Carthage and Hippo, held in 394 & 397, and sent on to Rome for approval. The Canon of the OT is that which was used by Jesus & the
Apostles. Around 90 AD, after the destruction of Jerusalem, by the Romans, the Jewish rabbis held a Council at Jamnia in which they removed from their Scriptures any books not written in Hebrew. These included both Macabees and others. Those books were in the Scriptures used by Jesus which is why they are in the Catholic Bible. The reformers in the 15th cent. decided to use the Jewish Scriptures after Jamnia. The books which the rabbis removed are known as the deutero-canonicals. The Protestants call them the Apocrypha. What Catholics call Apocrypha are the books which were determined to be not inspired, like the Protoevangelium of James and the Shepherd of Hermas. Both of these books, along with othes, were in use in the 4th Cent. until the 2 Councils mentioned above canonized the NT. Hope this helps.

Peace,
Linda
 
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mlchance:
All four canonical Gospels were written no later than 90 A.D. The various apocryphal gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas featured in the profoundly ridiculous movie Stigmata are later, often much later.

– Mark L. Chance.
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Hey—ridiculous as that movie was, it was the reason one of my Baptist friends wanted so badly to go to Mass with me and she was tickled pink when I gave her a rosary. But is was ludicrous.
 
Hey since we’re talking about these books—anybody read The Acts of Paul and Thekla? I love it!! And there actually is a St. Thekla whose feast day is Sept 23. I’ve begun making a novena to her.

I am no Bible scholar, correct me if I’m wrong all you Catholic eggheads, but just because some of these books weren’t included—that doesn’t mean they can’t be helpful to us spiritually sometimes does it? Because I was really touched by Thekla’s story.
 
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