Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/14

x partly from traditions, and partly from the imagination of their authors. They are of no historical or doctrinal authority, and were never officially recognised in the Church. On many accounts they deserve nothing but reproach, and that has been liberally heaped upon them in all ages. It has been very truly observed of the false Gospels in particular, by Bishop Ellicott, in the "Cambridge Essays" for 1856, that,

"Their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their coarseness, the barbarities of their style, and the inconsequence of their narratives, have never been excused or condoned. It would be hard to find any competent writer, in any age of the Church, who has been beguiled into saying anything civil or commendatory." (p. 153.)

And again:—

"The torrent of abuse, condemnation, and invective, that issued from the fountains of early orthodoxy, and has never lacked an affluent in any generation since the days of Irenæus, has raged against these unhappy mythologies with an unabated vehemence, which, as far as the honour of the orthodox faith is concerned, must be pronounced both edifying and exemplary. The whole vocabulary of theological