This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
THE SUPPRESSED GOSPELS AND EPISTLES OF THE ORIGINAL NEW TESTAMENT OF JESUS THE CHRIST
AND OTHER PORTIONS OF THE ANCIENT HOLY SCRIPTURES. NOW EXTANT, ATTRIBUTED TO HIS APOSTLES, AND THEIR DISCIPLES, AND VENERATED BY THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES DURING THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES, BUT SINCE, AFTER VIOLENT DISPUTATIONS FORBIDDEN BY THE BISHOPS OF THE NICENE COUNCIL, IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE AND OMITTED FROM THE CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANT EDITIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, BY ITS COMPILERS
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL TONGUES, WITH HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO THEIR AUTHENTICITY,
BY ARCHBISHOP WAKE AND OTHER LEARNED DIVINES
THE ORDER OF ALL THE FORBIDDEN BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WITH THEIR PROPER NAMES, AND NUMBER OF CHAPTERS
CONTENTS:
Mary
Protevangelion
I. Infancy
II. Infancy
Nicodemus
Christ and Abgarus
Laodiceans
Paul and Seneca
Acts of Paul and Thecla
I. Clement
II. Clement
Barnabas
Ephesians
Magnesians
Trallians
Romans
Philadelphians
Smyrnaeans
Polycarp
Philippians
I. Hermas—Visions
II. Hermas—Commands
III. Hermas—Similitudes
PREFACE.
To uphold the "right of private judgment," and our "Christian libertywherewith Christ hath made us free;" to add fuel to the fire ofinvestigation, and in the crucible of deep inquiry, melt from the goldof pure religion, the dross of man's invention; to appeal from theerring tribunals of a fallible Priesthood, and restore to its originalstate the mutilated Testament of the Saviour; also to induce all earnestthinkers to search not a part, but the whole of the Scriptures, iftherein they think they will find eternal life; I, as an advocate offree thought and untrammelled opinion, dispute the authority of thoseuncharitable, bickering, and ignorant Ecclesiastics who first suppressedthese gospels and epistles; and I join issue with their Catholic andProtestant successors who have since excluded them from the NewTestament, of which they formed a part; and were venerated by thePrimitive Churches, during the first four hundred years of the ChristianEra.
My opposition is based on two grounds; first, the right of every rationalbeing to become a "Priest unto himself," and by the test of enlightenedreason, to form his own unbiassed judgment of all things natural andspiritual: second, that the reputation of the Bishops who extractedthese books from the original New Testament, under the pretence of beingApocryphal, and forbade them to be read by the people, is proved byauthentic impartial history too odious to entitle them to any deference.Since the Nicene Council, by a pious fraud, which I shall further alludeto, suppressed these books, several of them have been reissued from timeto time by various translators, who differed consi