IV. The Gospel Of Perfection.

The Gospel of Perfection was another work regarded as sacred by the Ophites. St. Epiphanius says: “Some of them (i.e. of the Gnostics) there are who vaunt the possession of a certain fictitious, far-fetched poem which they call the Gospel of Perfection, whereas it is not a Gospel, but the perfection of misery. For the bitterness of death is consummated in that production of the devil. Others without shame boast their Gospel of Eve.”

St. Epiphanius calls this Gospel of Perfection a poem, ποιήμα. But M. Nicolas justly observes that the word ποιήμα is used here, not to describe the work as a poetical composition, but as a fiction. In a passage of Irenaeus,[490] of which only the Latin has been preserved, the Gospel of Judas is called “confictio,” and it is probable that the Greek word rendered by “confictio” was ποιήμα.[491]

Baur thinks that the Gospel of Perfection was the same as the Gospel of Eve.[492] But this can hardly be. The words of St. Epiphanius plainly distinguish them: “Some vaunt the Gospel of Perfection ... others boast ... the Gospel of Eve;” and elsewhere he speaks of their books in the plural.[493]

V. The Gospel Of St. Philip.

This Gospel belonged to the same category as those of Perfection and of Eve, and belonged, if not to the Ophites, to an analogous sect, perhaps that of the Prodicians. St. Philip passed, in the early ages of Christianity, as having been, like St. Paul, an apostle of the Gentiles,[494] and perhaps as having agreed with his views on the Law and evangelical liberty. But tradition had confounded together Philip the apostle and Philip the deacon of Caesarea, who, after having been a member of the Hellenist Church at Jerusalem, and having been driven thence after the martyrdom of Stephen, was the first to carry the Gospel beyond the family of Israel, and to convert the heathen to Christ.[495] His zeal and success caused him to be called an Evangelist.[496] In the second century it was supposed that an Evangelist meant one who had written a Gospel. And as no Gospel bearing his name existed, one was composed for him and attributed to him or to the apostle—they were not distinguished.

St. Epiphanius has preserved one passage from it: