Gospels of Thomas and Philip and Truth - Syriac Christian Church

St Augustine of Hippo, Letter XXVIII, to Jerome (394 AD); Letter XL, to Jerome
(397): I have been reading also some writings ascribed to you, on the Epistles of the
Apostle Paul. In reading your exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians,... most
disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found
in the sacred books: that is to say, that the men by whom the Scripture has been
given to us and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false....
For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as
made in the way of duty, there will not be left a single sentence of those books
which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the
same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which intentionally and under a
sense of duty, the author declared what was not true.... If indeed Peter seemed to
him to be doing what was right, and if notwithstanding, he, in order to soothe
troublesome opponents, both said and wrote that Peter did what was wrong— if we
say thus,... nowhere in the sacred books shall the authority of pure truth stand sure.
|| If it be possible for men to say and believe that, after introducing his narrative with
these words, ‘The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not’, the
apostle lied when he said of Peter and Barnabas, ‘I saw that they walked not
uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel’,... [then] if they did walk uprightly, Paul
wrote what was false; and if he wrote what was false here, when did he say what
was true?
Anselm of Laon (†1117), Gloss on I-Corinthians 15: ‘He was seen by Cephas’;
prior to the other males, to whom, as we read in the Gospel, he appeared. Otherwise
this would be contrary to the statement that he appeared first to the women.
Peter Abelard, Sic et Non (1120); Letters of Direction (before 1142): Writing in
reply to St Augustine, after he had been brought to task by Augustine concerning the
exposition of a certain spot in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Jerome said
(Epist112.4), ‘You ask why I have said in my commentary on Paul's letter to the
Galatians that Paul could not have rebuked Peter for what he himself had also done.
And you asserted that the reproof of the Apostle was not merely feigned, but true
guidance, and that I ought not to teach a falsehood. I respond that ... I followed the
commentary of Origen.’ || We know of course that when writing to the Thessalonians
the Apostle [Paul] sharply rebuked certain idle busybodies by saying that ‘A man
who will not work shall not eat.’... But was not Mary sitting idle in order to listen to the
words of Christ, while Martha was ... grumbling rather enviously about her sister's
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