The Secret Gospel goes elsewhere, but that bit is supposed to be a bit of the Secret Gospel that was accidentally left in the real one.
(I have to confess that every instinct I've got has always told me the Secret Gospel letter was a fairly modern fake - it's just such an interesting coincidence that the only quotations that survive are the ones best tailored to appeal to the prurient interests of the second half of the 20th century, and it was discovered in the second half of the late 20th century by a scholar who was invested in the idea of Christ as libertine who then mysteriously lost track of the original. That does not make it less amusing a fanfic though.)
I have always had a deep affection for the Nag Hammadi secret gospels, though. The gnostic philosophy/sayings of Christ parts are usually interesting, and then there are the bits of them that read like the fossilized remains of a juvenile shipwar - "John was the disciple Jesus loved and went off alone with at night and whispered secrets to!" "No, Thomas was!" "No, James was!" "No, Peter was, and you're all stupidheads!" ...and then there's the Gospel of Mary Magdalene where they all get together and admit it was her. You come to the inescapable conclusion that he must have been juggling all of them on alternate nights. :D
And the infancy gospels are brilliant crackfic, especially Thomas! I also like some of the books that tour Heaven and Hell, like the books of Enoch. They make no sense but there were definitely some frustrated SF writers out there.
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(I have to confess that every instinct I've got has always told me the Secret Gospel letter was a fairly modern fake - it's just such an interesting coincidence that the only quotations that survive are the ones best tailored to appeal to the prurient interests of the second half of the 20th century, and it was discovered in the second half of the late 20th century by a scholar who was invested in the idea of Christ as libertine who then mysteriously lost track of the original. That does not make it less amusing a fanfic though.)
I have always had a deep affection for the Nag Hammadi secret gospels, though. The gnostic philosophy/sayings of Christ parts are usually interesting, and then there are the bits of them that read like the fossilized remains of a juvenile shipwar - "John was the disciple Jesus loved and went off alone with at night and whispered secrets to!" "No, Thomas was!" "No, James was!" "No, Peter was, and you're all stupidheads!" ...and then there's the Gospel of Mary Magdalene where they all get together and admit it was her. You come to the inescapable conclusion that he must have been juggling all of them on alternate nights. :D
And the infancy gospels are brilliant crackfic, especially Thomas! I also like some of the books that tour Heaven and Hell, like the books of Enoch. They make no sense but there were definitely some frustrated SF writers out there.