Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/17

Rh will acquaint himself with facts, I do not see how any honest man, or any but the impudent and malicious, can ascribe an atom of value to the fable which Pappus raked out of obscurity. It is well known, moreover, that most of the Christian Apocrypha were still unwritten when the Nicene council was held.

I have elsewhere written as follows: Any statement made now, that the spurious Gospels were ever regarded in the Church as inspired and true, must arise from ignorance or malicious misrepresentation, and must be condemned as false and deceitful. It is of course probable that individuals who knew no better may have been imposed upon by the forged fables we have in view, and it is certain that some of the wilder sects of heresy appear to have accepted one or two of the false Gospels, but neither of these facts is opposed to our assertion. At the present day the Mormons receive the absurd Book of Mormon as an inspired document, but it would be an insult to tell us that this volume is accepted by the Christian Church. The case of the one or two false Gospels, which some heretics received, is exactly parallel, because the heretics in question, and their Gospels, were repudiated by the Church. We could mention heretics who rejected a part or the whole of some of our