Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/25

Rh N.T.," or, "Uncanonical Gospels and other writings," brought out by Dr. Giles, in 1852, but the editor had the misfortune to know nothing about the books he published.

Considerably lower is the "Apocryphal New Testament: being all the Gospels, Epistles, and other pieces now extant, attributed, in the first four centuries, to Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and their companions, and not included in the New Testament by its compilers;" by William Hone, London, 1820. This mean affair has had an immense run, and is constantly reprinted with the original date and swarms of blunders. Hone much regretted publishing this book when he came to a better mind, but it was beyond his power to recall it, or it would have been suppressed. What he did in preparing it, was to select some of the translations of Jones, and attach to them the version of the Apostolic Fathers by Wake; all these he cut up into chapters and verses, prefixing headings to his chapters, to make them look like ordinary editions of the New Testament. His introductions and notes are borrowed (without acknowledgment in great part) from the same sources as his text, and hashed up to suit his purpose. It is a standing reproach to our literature