The Gospel of Nicodemus

Summary

The authorship of this Gospel has been widely disputed. Some scholars accept that it was really written by Nicodemus, the Pharisee who visited Jesus by night, as described in chapter three of John’s Gospel. Others have conjectured that the Gospel was a forgery made towards the close of the third century by some zealous believer who imagined it would aid the spread of Christianity. Jeremiah Jones notes that such pious frauds were very common among Christians even in the first three centuries, and that the circulation of forgeries of this nature seems natural and probable.

The reference to the Acts of Pontius Pilate relates to a note in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340), which mentions the book and avers that it was not composed by ‘a heathen’.

Whether this text is canonical or not, it is of great antiquity and was appealed to by several ancient Christians.

The translation used for this recording was made from the Gospel published by Grynaeus in the Orthodoxographa.