LEM

The “apocryphal continent” constitutes an invaluable witness to the religious doctrines and practices of ancient Jews and Christians. This vast body of literature preserved in Greek and Latin as in many other languages (Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, medieval vernaculars) includes texts included from the Western Scriptural canon (although they were sometimes included in other scriptural collections, such as e.g. the Ethiopic canon).

| Texts that were meant to complete the canonical corpus

These anonymous or pseudepigraphal works, written in the late antique context, were meant to complete the authoritative texts of ancient Judaism and Christianity, an often referred to biblical characters or events narrated in the Bible.

| The AELAC – Association for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature

The Association for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (AELAC) was created in 1981 with members and associates of LEM. It aims to produce critical editions and commentaries of ancient Christian apocrypha, published in the series “Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum” (Brepols). Moreover, a soft-cover series is destined for a broader public, the “Brepols Apocryphes.” The AELEC publishes an international journal of apocryphal studies, Apocrypha, coordinated at LEM by Anna Van der Kerchove.

| Christian Apocryphal Writings

The two volumes of the Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, published in the prestigious series “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” offer annotated translations of Christian apocrypha of the first two centuries CE in French.

| Preparation of a critical edition of the Acta Pilati

Within the editorial committee of the AELAC Association, scholars are currently working on a critical edition of the apocryphal text commonly known today as the Acta Pilati or the Gospel of Nicodemus. This edition will be published in the “Corpus Christianorum” series at Brepols. This apocryphal text, considered to have been written in Greek in the second half of the 4th century or earlier according to some scholars, was widely disseminated in late antiquity and the middle ages ; it presents an alternative version of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, augmented with accounts of the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.
A first volume will be based on all the extent Greek manuscripts grouped according to their respective families (with Rémi Gounelle, University of Strasbourg, Christiane Furrer, University of Lausanne), along with an edition of the Georgian manuscripts (with Bernard Outtier, honorary member of LEM), Syriac manuscripts (with Albert Frey, University of Lausanne), Palestinian manuscripts (with Alain Desreumaux, CNRS/Orient et Méditerranée), and Coptic manuscripts (with Gérard Roquet and Jean-Daniel Dubois, honorary members of the LEM). A second volume will be dedicated to Latin manuscripts. A collection of studies on this ongoing research has been published in 2019 : The oldest Manuscript of the Acts of Pilate