This page is an introduction and a catalogue, but it is also a reminder of Oscar Wilde's epigram - to lose one Gospel is unfortunate, to lose two is carelessness, but to lose quite so many as this suggests a conspiracy.
Nor is the church unwilling to confess as much. These documents are lost because they were condemned as heretical, which is to say that they did not accord with the orthodox view of Jesus, his life, his ministry, his teachings, his death, his resurrection, as ordained by those who had managed to seize power in the early years of the history of the church. They are lost because they were physically destroyed by order, because publication was prohibited, or because they were locked away in the vaults of the Vatican for safe-keeping. Stalin and Mao undertook similar measures in the 20th century, to rid themselves of the nuisance of opposition and disagreement; the role of the Lord Chamberlain in Britain achieved much the same for the theatre for four hundred years; and Judaism has used excommunication for the same purpose.
The establishment of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the four "canonical" Gospels, and the consequent suppression of all others, is largely the work of Iranaeus, the Greek-born Bishop of Lyons at the end of the 2nd century CE. A full account of his life and work can be found here.
In addition to those "Canonical Gospels", all or part of an unspecifiable number of additional Gospels may still be in existence, though not all of them are accessible to all readers or scholars. I have divided these into four categories, but you will see that there are some overlaps and repetitions, because without access we cannot be sure, in several cases, whether they are lost, locked up, fake, or the same as another that is known, as has often been speculated.
Archbishop Wake's account of all the New Testament books that have been proscribed or lost can be found here; it includes non-Gospel books, no further work on which is intended by TheBibleNet. The book will prove invaluable to you if you are interested in reading what survives of these Gospels, as he includes such text as was available to him.
Copyright © 2020 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press
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