120 Jesus, Prophet ofIslam
The most that the Paulinian.Church could hope to achieve was
the systematic and complete suppression of all the [udeo-Chris
tian writings which clearly and unequivocally affirmed the One
ness of God as well as confirming the continuity of both teaching
and behaviour which existed between Moses and Jesus, peace be
on them.
Thus once the doctrine of Trinity had been formally adopted
and declared to be the official doctrine of the Pauline Church, one
of the inevitable consequences of this decision was that out of the
three hundred or so Gospels extant at that time, only the four which
were selected as the official Gospels of the Pauline Church were
permitted to survive. The remaining Gospels, including the Gospel
of Barnabas, were ordered to be destroyed completely. It was also
decided that all Gospels written in Hebrew should be destroyed.
Edicts were issued stating that anyone found in possession of an
unauthorised Gospel would be put to death. This was the first well
organisedattemptto remove all the records of Jesus's original teach
ing, whether in human beings or books, which contradicted the
doctrine of Trinity. In the case of the Gospel of Barnabas, these or
ders were not entirely successful, and mention of its continued ex
istence has been made up to the present day:
Pope Damasus (304-384 AD), who became Pope in 366 AD, is
recorded as having issued a decree that the Gospel ofBarnabas should
not be read. This decree was supported by Gelasus, Bishop of
Caesaria, who died in 395 AD. The Gospel was included in his list
of Apocryphal books. 'Apocrypha' simply means 'hidden from the
people'. Thus, at this stage, the Gospel was no longer available to
everyone, but was still being referred to by the leaders of the
Church. In fact, it is known that the Pope secured a copy of the
Gospel of Barnabas in 383 AD, and kept it in his private library.
There were a number of other decrees which referred to the
Gospel. Itwas forbidden by the Decree of the Western Churches in
382 AD, and by PopeInnocentin 465 AD. In the Gelasian Decree of
496 AD, the Evangelium Barnabe is included in the list of forbidden
books. This decree was reaffirmed by Hormisdas, who was Pope
from 514 to 523 AD. AIl these decrees are mentioned in the Cata
logue of Greek Manuscripts in the Library of Chancellor Seguier
(1558-1672), prepared by B. de Montfaucon (1655-1741).
The writings of Barnabas - which include his Epistle as well as
his Gospel' - are also mentioned in the Stichometry of Nicephorus
as follows:
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