The Lost Scriptures – books that did not make it into the New Testament.

The Gospel of the Egyptians

6. 45. The Lord said to Salome when she inquired: How long shall death prevail? ‘As long as ye women bear children’, not because life is an ill, and the creation evil: but as showing the sequence of nature: for in all cases birth is followed by decay.

Excerpts from Theodotus, 67. And when the Saviour says to Salome that there shall be death as long as women bear children, he did not say it as abusing birth, for that is necessary for the salvation of believers.

Strom. iii. 9. 63. But those who set themselves against God’s creation because of continence, which has a fair-sounding name, quote also those words which were spoken to Salome, of which I made mention before. They are contained, I think (or I take it) in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that ‘the Savior himself said: I came to destroy the works of the female’. By female he means lust: by works, birth and decay.

This is another gospel that has been lost to the “dustbin” of time. Again, like the gospel of the Hebrews, we only have quotes and references to it from the writings of Clement, one of the early church fathers. Most of the contents of the writings we have from Clement recount conversations between Jesus and a woman named Salome. Many of the sayings concern the “desires of the flesh and sexual activity” and how they should be condemned and are opposed to the will of G-d. In fact the gospel appears originally to have condemned the practice of marriage.

Salome, as you might remember, is one of the women who discovered the empty tomb on the day of the resurrection of Jesus. Apparently Salome became an important figure in some circles of Christianity including those who were living in and around Egypt. She is named as a disciple of Jesus in both the Gospel to the Egyptians and the Gospel of Thomas, as well as in the Secret Gospel of Mark. Here are some other attributes of Salome:

• Salome has a voice in the Gospel to the Egyptians and asks Jesus a few questions. The implication there, however, is that she was childless.
• In the Gospel of Thomas, she shared a couch with Jesus during a meal.
• In the early Church several traditions maintained that Salome was the source of some “secret traditions” handed down by Jesus’ disciples.
• By the latter part of the 2nd century, however, these traditions were deemed to be heretical.
• One of these second-century sects (the Harpocratians) traced their origin back to Salome.

It is important to remember that women did have an important role to play, not only in the life of Jesus, but in the life of the disciples before and after the resurrection. Although the men of the third and fourth centuries would often downplay the role and the “reputations” of many women, we can reclaim their significance by reading books like the Gospel of the Egyptians.

Pastor Dave

 The Lost Scriptures – books that did not make it into the New Testament.

The Gospel According to the Hebrews

“I am come to do away with sacrfices, and if you cease not sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from you.”
(Epiphanius,  Panarion 30.16,4-5)

“Where will you have us prepare the passover?”
And him to answer to that: “Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?” (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22.4)

 “Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be
an emissary first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of
Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the
benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed, who
translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained.
Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the
library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently
collected.  I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this
volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it. In which is to be
remarked that, wherever the evangelist… makes use of the
testimonies of the Old Scripture, he does not follow the
authority of the seventy translators [the Greek Septuagint], but
that of the Hebrew.  To these belong the two “Out of Egypt have
I called my son” and “For he shall be called a Nazaraean.”

The Gospel According to the Hebrews does not exist as a complete work. What we do have are quotes from church Fathers like Clement, Origen, and Jerome, all church Fathers. These “giants” of the faith were all located in and around Alexandria, Egypt — therefore it is believed this gospel was written in Egypt around the second century. The name “Gospel According to the Hebrews” most likely was given to it by outsiders of the faith who lived in Egypt, not by those inside the faith. The gospel was most likely written in Greek and narrates different events in the life of Jesus – his baptism, his temptation experience, and his resurrection. But these accounts are alternative forms of these stories that appeared to have been passed down orally to the unknown author who wrote them down.

Some of the sayings in the book have Gnostic overtones, others have a strong Jewish flavor. Some of the accounts are truly unique – including the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to James, who had sworn at the last supper that he would not eat again until he should see Jesus raised from the dead.

The importance of this Gospel cannot be dismissed easily. Although it was not included in the canon, early church Fathers used it in their writings – and found it instructive in their exegetical arguments. In other words, they found some of the material important enough to include in their considerations alongside the use of the Canonical Scriptures. Although it is difficult enough to get to reading the canon (bible) each and every day, it wouldn’t hurt to read other “gospels” once in a while. Happy reading…..

Pastor Dave