August 4 (as well as October 22) commemorates the “Seven Sleepers of Ephesus” in the Orthodox church. What is the story of these sleepers? And why are they also in the Quran? The names of the youths varies, depending on the traditions/translations, but according to the OCA’s page (link HERE), their names were Maximilian, Iamblicus, …
Tag Archives: christianapocrypha
Who was Saint Veronica?
July 12 is the feast day for Saint Veronica. But who is she? She is best known as the woman who wipes the face of Jesus during the sixth station of the cross. This particular event did not happen in the gospels but has been a part of the western tradition. So where does this …
The History of the Death of the Virgin Mary as told by Saint John
Today I bring you another Ethiopian tale, this time another version of the Dormition narrative. If you are familiar with this story, you’ll see some of the same aspects in this text. This was originally published by my favorite 19th/20th century scholar, E. A. Wallis Budge. I find it truly amazing the amount of work …
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Toll houses in the Gospel of Mary
The Gospel of Mary is probably the most famous non-Nag Hammadi library text out there. Despite it not being complete, an interesting teaching arises from this text. I am going to solely focus on the toll houses presented in this story. If you did not catch my previous blog entry about toll houses (click HERE), …
Toll Houses in the (Coptic) Apocalypse of Paul
Over the past few months, I’ve been gathering sources on Toll Houses. This is an Orthodox concept regarding souls after they leave the body and their ascent into heaven. Now let it be said, this is not a mainstream belief in modern Orthodoxy. There is much debate in it, but the concept does exist, and …
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The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple
A few months ago I posted about the Nativity of the Theotokos and references two source materials, the Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. I will do the same for the feast day for the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, which is on November 21. This feast date commemorates Mary entering …
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The Prayer of Mary at Bartos
If you like the North African magic that appeared in the “Book of Mary’s Repose” and the “Lefāfa Ṣedeḳ“, you’re going to love this. I recently obtained an English translation of the text known as “The Prayer of Mary At Bartos.” The booklet I received is just the text with no commentary or history, thus …
Nativity of the Theotokos
September 8 is the feast day of the Nativity of the Theotokos. I realized I never shared the story of the event before, so I will present it here. This is from the Protoevangelium of James, a second century text. I have referenced this text before for other aspects, but never the first part. Here …
Syrian Dormition of Mary story
Three years ago I wrote about the oldest known Dormition story titled “The Book of Mary’s Repose” and had did a review of the Ge’ez version (see post #1 here). Recently I found an old book published by my favorite early 20th century translator, E.A. Wallis Budge, titled “History of the Blessed Virgin Mary“, which …
An Encomium on St John the Baptist
Another full Coptic tale for you with this post! This particular text is titled “An Encomium on Saint John the Baptist, by Saint John Chrysostom.” Now was this actually written by John Chrysostom? I have read online that it’s more likely a “pseudo-” attribution. I will leave that up to you, the reader, to decide …
Culmination of Wisdom 