ART. I. The Apocryphal 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. Translated, and now first Collected into one volume, with Prefaces and Tables, and various Notes and References. From the last London Edition. Boston. 1832.
WE have little fault to find with this publication, except as regards the mode of getting it up. The pieces which enter into the collection, are, we suppose, perfectly harmless. No considerate reader, at least, can be injured by them, nor can the cause of Christianity suffer by their republication, provided their origin and history, so far as known, be told. But it was due, we think, from the editor, in fairness, to state the principle on which they were excluded from the number of books esteemed of authority among Christians. The language of the Preface, too, is, in some respects, exceptionable. It speaks of the writings which compose the New Testament, as selected from the "various Gospels and Epistles then in existence," by certain "compilers," a mode of expression which, as will hereafter appear, is calculated to convey an erroneous impression of the manner in which the volume of canonical Scriptures was formed.
Again, the editor of the present publication places the pieces embraced in it, in the number of those "considered 1