142 Jesus, Prophet of Islam
Thus, The Shepherd was a book which obviously could not be
ignored and which was accepted as a revealed book by the major
ity of early Christian thinkers and loyers of God. It was written
when the rnovernent to 'Hellenise' the teachings of Jesus was in its
infancy, and at a tirne when rnany of those who followed Jesus
were still aware that Jesus had come to restore and expand the
teaching which Moses had brought to the [ews, Like Jesus, they
were practising [ews whose understanding of what they were do
ing was illuminated by the knowledge Jesus had brought. They
still believed in and followed the writings of the Old Testament,
and sinee The Shepherd affirmed what they already knew, they ac
cepted Hermas's book into their body of Scriptures.
As we have already seen, with the teaching by sorne, notably
Paul, that the laws of the [ews need not be followed by Christians,
contradictions began to arise between the body of newly written
Scriptures, which later became known as the 'New' Testament, and
what accordingly came to be re-defined as the 'Old' Testament.
However, the OldTestament was retained by the established Church
in spite of these contradictions, since an outright rejection of the
Old Testament would have been regarded by rnany of the people as
a rejection of Jesus hirnself. Confusion was the inevitable result. In
the atternpt to aceept and reject the Old Testament sirnultaneously,
contradictions arose within the New Testament itself, since it had to
be 'new' without openly rejecting the 'old'. But, in the early days
of the Church, there was no real atternpt to formally arrange the
books and ensure that all the accounts and doctrines taHied with
each other. The leaders of the first Christian communities were free
to use their discretion and to refer to those Scriptures which they
thought best contained the teachings of Jesus.
With the developrnent, formulation and official acceptance in
325 AD of the doctrine of Trinity, such latitude was no longer ac
ceptable to the established Pauline Church. As we have already
seen, the four aceepted Gospels were selected and all the other
Scriptures written after [esus's birth were banned. However, the
leaders of the Pauline Church, who were not entirely satisfied with
their doctrine of 'rnysteries', which was now beginning to develop,
and who recognised the validity of sorne of the banned books,
wished to retain sorne of these books even though they directly
contradided the new doctrines of their Church. Accordingly books
such as these were gathered together and their avaiIabTIityhmited
to the people in power in the Church. They became known as The
Apocrypha, which rneans 'hidden frorn the people'.
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