EARLY CHURCH
WRITINGS
II. NONCANONICAL WRITINGS
OF THE
February
15, 2006
Charles P.
Poole, Jr.
1. Introduction
2. Apocryphal Gospels
2a. Narrative Gospels
2a1. Gospel of Peter
2a2. Gospel of Mary
2a3. Epistle of the Apostles
2a4. Second Treatise of the Great Seth
2a5. Secret Gospel of Mark
2a6. Gospel of Nicodemus
2b. Sayings Gospels
2b1.
Gospel of Thomas
2b2.
Thomas the Contender
2b3.
Gospel of Philip
2c. Infancy Gospels
2c1.
Proto-Gospel of James
2c2.
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
2c3.
First Infancy Gospel
2d. Miscellaneous Gospel Types
2d1.
Gospel of Truth
2d2.
Letters of Herod and Pilate
2e. Fragmentary Gospels
2e1.
Gospel of the Nazareans
2e2.
Gospel of the Ebionites
2e3.
Gospel According to the Hebrews
2e4.
Gospel of the Egyptians
2e5.
Egerton Gospel
2e6.
Gospel of the Savior
3. Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
3a. Acts of John
3b. Acts of Paul
3c. Acts of Peter
3d. Acts of Thecla
3e. Acts of Thomas
4. Apocryphal
Apocalypses
4a. Apocalypse of Peter
4b. Apocalypse of Paul
4c. Secret Book of John
4d. Origin of the World
4e. First Thought in Three Forms
4f. Hymn of the
5. Apocryphal
Epistles and Other Writings
5a. Third Letter of Paul to the Corinthians.
5b. Correspondence of Paul and Seneca
5c. Paul’s Letter to the Laodiceans
5d. Letter of Peter to James, and its Reception
5e. Homilies of Clement
5f. Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora
5g.
Treatise on the Resurrection
5h.
Preaching of Peter
5i. Pseudo-Titus
6. Concluding
Remarks
1. Introduction
This
lecture will discuss ancient noncanonical or apocryphal writings. books written
in the format of the New Testament books, which fall under the categories of
Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Apocalypses, and Epistles. The New Testament itself has four gospels,
one Acts of the Apostles, one Apocalypse
called Revelation, and 21 Epistles. The
apocryphal literature that we will discuss consists of 20 gospels, 5 acts of
the apostles, 6 apocalypses, and 9 epistles and related writings. There may be additional apocrypha that I did
not come across. It should be emphasized that these writings under discussion
are in no way inspired, and in fact many of them present erroneous
viewpoints. Some are harmless, although
they recount fanciful legends which are not credible. Others provide useful information which adds to our
Tradition, such as the Proto-Gospel of James.
Overall, it is interesting to know something about these works.
Some manuscripts of these
apocryphal writings have been available for over a millenium, while others have
only come to light in recent centuries.
Many are also known from comments made about them by early Church
writers who had read and discussed them.
We are all familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls which are Old Testament
Era manuscripts discovered in caves at
There
are a number of additional works from the era of the
2.
Apocryphal Gospels
Some
of the apocryphal gospels and other writings were well known in the apostolic
Church, and others only came to prominence in recent centuries. Several of these writings had a strong
gnostic influence. (Gnostics believed that salvation was reserved for the
chosen few who had acquired secret knowledge or gnosis secretly passed on to
the elite from the apostles). We
possess entire manuscripts of some of these apocrypha, while others only exist
in fragmentary form. Copies of some are
available in their original languages, while others are only extant as
translations. There are various
categories of apocryphal gospels, such as narrative gospels, collections of
sayings of Christ, infancy accounts, and those with a Jewish-Christian
influence. We will discuss several of
the more important in detail, and mention others in passing.
2a. Narrative Gospels
The
narrative gospels are the apocrypha written in the style of the synoptic
gospels. In general they include the recounting of events, and telling us what
Jesus said.
2a1. The Gospel of Peter was believed to have been
read at Rhossus in
2a2. The Gospel of Mary (i.e. Mary Magdalen)
begins with a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples that took place after
the resurrection. There is a private revelation of Jesus to Mary Magdalen. Toward the end Levi said to Peter that the
Savior “loved her (Mary) more than us.”
This outlandish comment could have provided an inspiration for Dan Brown
to write the Da Vinci Code.
2a3. The so called Epistle of the Apostles begins “What Jesus Christ revealed to his
disciples in a letter”, hence its designation as an epistle. Its content, however, is more like that of a
gospel, so we categorize it as such. It relates post resurrection encounters of
Jesus with his apostles and the three women Sarah, Martha, and Mary
Magdalen. It recounts the appearance of
the resurrected Lord to the three women, and notes how the apostles refused to
believe their story. It condemns the
views of the leading gnostic heroes Simon Magnus and Cerinthus, but despite
this many Gnostics of the Apostolic Age liked the gospel because it seemed to
provide them with secret knowledge which the orthodox Christians did not
have. This is a very paradoxical
situation. The Gospel mentions the four
archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel.
The first two are in the scriptures accepted by Protestants, Raphael is
prominent in the deuterocanonical book Tobit that is in the Catholic Old
Testament, but not in the Protestant one, and Uriel appears in the Old
Testament apocryphal book 2 Esdras. The Epistle
of Peter had been lost during the Middle
Ages, and appeared again toward the end of the 19th century.
2a4. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth begins
with the alleged claim of Jesus “I
visited a bodily dwelling, I cast out the one who was in it previously, and I
went in.” It is further claimed that
Jesus occupied that body throughout his ministry, and at the end only appeared
to die. Jesus watched and laughed as the
crucifiers fed gall and vinegar to, put the crown of thorns on, and nailed to
the cross different individuals thinking all the time that they were punishing
Jesus who “was not afflicted at all.”
During the third century this treatise provided the Gnostics with
supposedly secret knowledge (gnosis) of Jesus’ life and death. The work had been lost, and was rediscovered
at Nag Hammadi in
2a5. The Secret Gospel of Mark is a fragment of an
allegedly longer gospel that Mark wrote containing secret knowledge (gnosis)
for the spiritual elite. Mark supposedly
wrote his shorter canonical gospel for the ordinary Christians, and his longer
secret one for those already endowed with
higher level secret knowledge like those belonging to the Gnostic
sect. The claim cannot be
substantiated. The extant fragment is
embedded in a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria.
2a6. The Gospel of Nicodemus, which was formerly
called the Acts of Pontius Pilate, recounts the sufferings and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In some ways it
parallels events in the canonical gospels, but with embellishments. Jesus’ disciple Nicodemus appears as a
character in the narration, hence its present title. Pilate also appears prominently, hence its
former title.
2b. Sayings Gospels
The
Sayings Gospels are, to a great extent, collections of statements made by Jesus
during his public ministry, without accompanying narrative material. Many scripture scholars believe that there
was a Sayings Gospel called the Q Source, no longer in existence, which
provided source material for the authors of the synoptic gospels.
2b1.
The Gospel of Thomas begins “These are the secret sayings which the living
Jesus spoke, and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” It continues “Whoever finds the
interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.” Then Jesus said “Let him who seeks continue
seeking until he finds. When he finds,
he will become troubled. When he becomes
troubled he will be astonished, and he will rule over the all.” This claim that the possession of special
secret knowledge or gnosis can prevent death and enable one to “rule over the
all”, was a driving force motivating
the adherents of Gnosticism. There are
other gnostic viewpoints expressed in this gospel, such as the claim that
people are imprisoned in their material bodies, and that gnosis can release
them and bring about their salvation.
There are 114 verses or sayings in all, 79 of which have parallels in
the canonical Synoptic Gospels, and eleven which are variants of synoptic
parables.
2b2. The work Thomas the Contender begins with the
assertion that it represents secret sayings of the Savior. It contains some esoteric gnostic teachings.
2b3. The Gospel of Philip, which was not well
known in antiquity, was discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1940's. It is strongly gnostic, and develops the
contrast between ordinary Christians and those with secret, esoteric
knowledge. The virginity of Mary is
emphasized, as well as five sacraments: Baptism, Anointing, Eucharist,
Salvation and Marriage. It states that
“The Eucharist is Jesus.” Unfortunately
it mentions “The consort of Jesus is Mary Magdalen.”
2c.
Infancy Gospels
Infancy
gospels devote most of their text to events before, during, and shortly after
the birth of Jesus, or to his childhood.
2c1. The Proto-Gospel of James has different
titles in ancient manuscripts, such as the “Proto-Evangelium of James”, “The Birth of Mary”, “The Birth of Mary; the Revelation of James”,
and “The Birth of Saint Mary, Mother of
God.” It ends with the statement “But I
James, the one who has written this account in Jerusalem.” Orthodox Christians have a very high regard
for this gospel. It contains legends of
Mary’s miraculous birth to Joachim and Anna, whose names are not mentioned in
the canonical gospels. An angel appeared
to Anna in her old age and told her that she would conceive and give birth to a
child who “will be spoken of throughout the entire world.” In 1854 the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX.
Later the widowers of the community were gathered together for the selection of a spouse for twelve year old
Mary, and a dove appeared signifying that Joseph was the choice. At first
Joseph declined saying “I have children and am an old man, but she is a child”,
then he agreed to take Mary into safe keeping.
The Proto-Gospel goes on to describe the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, and
the birth of Jesus. A midwife and
another woman examined Mary after the birth, and testified that she was indeed
a virgin. Joseph’s children by a previous
marriage explains the references to “the brothers of Jesus” in the canonical
gospels. This Proto-Gospel was known to
many of the early Fathers of the Church after the middle of the second century. It had a strong influence on the development
of mariology in succeeding centuries.
2c2.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas begins with the statement “I, Thomas the
Israelite, make this report to all of you.”
It describes incidents in Jesus childhood. He sometimes harmed and sometimes healed his
childhood associates. For example, he
allegedly killed a child, and caused others to be blinded. The gospel testifies to the miraculous powers
of Jesus between the ages of 5 and 12.
The stories are fanciful, and could in no way be true.
2c3. The First Infancy Gospel recounts some
alleged events during the childhood of Jesus.
For example, one time at age seven Jesus was making animals out of clay
with other boys, and they tried to outdo each other. Jesus won the contest by making some of his
clay animals walk, and some of his clay birds fly. When Joseph was doing carpenter tasks Jesus
would perform miracles to improve the quality of the work. One time Joseph brought Jesus to a schoolmaster
to learn to read and write, and Jesus demonstrated that he knew more than the
schoolmaster. This gospel recounts the
story of the 12 year old Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem conversing with the
learned men while Jesus and Mary looked for him. Like in the Gospel of Luke (2:52) it mentions
how he returned to Nazareth where he “grew in stature and wisdom and favor with
God and man.” This is followed by the
statement “Now from this time Jesus began to conceal his miracles and secret
works.” These stories are fanciful, not but true.
2d. Miscellaneous Gospel Types
2d1. The Gospel of Truth came to light at Nag
Hammadi in Egypt during the 1940's. It
is not really a gospel since it does not present the life or teachings of
Jesus. It expresses gnostic joy in
revealing so-called enlightening truths: “The gospel of the one who is searched
for, which was revealed to those who are perfect, through the mercies of the
father; the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ, enlightened those who were in
darkness through oblivion. He
enlightened them; he showed them a way; and the way is the truth which he
taught them.”
2d2. The work Letters of Herod and Pilate is a
compilation of five letters and reports written by and to Pontius Pilate
concerning Jesus. It ends with the
trial, condemnation, and death of Pilate.
2e.
Fragmentary Gospels
Fragmentary
gospels are ones for which only minor parts of manuscripts remain, with the
majority of the text lost to us. Several
other gospels which have much longer fragments in existence, such as the Gospel
of Peter and the Secret Gospel of Mark, are listed above. The first three fragmentary gospels, namely
Nazareans, Ebionuites and Hebrews, have been classified as Jewish-Christian
Gospels because they were composed by and for Jewish-Christian groups.
2e1. The Gospel of the Nazareans is a version of
the Gospel of Matthew originating from a sect of Jewish-Christians called
Nazareans. Our only record of its
contents is quotations from it in the works of various church Fathers such as
Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen.
2e2. All that we know about the Gospel of the
Ebionites, a sect of Jewish-Christians, is
quotations from it in the Panarion or Medicine Chest, a tract against
heretics written by Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 402). It may have constituted a harmony of the
three synoptic gospels.
2e3. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was a
Jewish-Christian gospel which survives in quotations from Clement of
Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, and Origen. It recounts the preexistent Christ descending
into the womb of Mary, the appearance of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, the
Lord appearing to James at a Eucharistic meal after the resurrection, and in
addition it quotes some wisdom sayings of Jesus.
2e4. The Gospel of the Egyptians survives in
quotations from it by Clement of Alexandria.
These fragments involve a dialogue of Jesus with a woman named
Salome. The desires of the flesh are
condemned.
2e5. The Egerton Gospel, also known as Papyrus
Egerton 2 and the Unknown Gospel, is preserved in four fragments which recount
four unrelated stories: 1) a controversy of Jesus with Jewish leaders, 2)
healing a leper, 3) paying tribute to Caesar, and 4) a miracle performed at the
Jordan river. The first three have parallels in the canonical gospels, and the
fourth has no such parallel.
2e6. The Gospel of the Savior, also called the
Dialogue of the Savior, is very difficult to reconstruct since the manuscript
is of very poor quality, with many holes in it.
3 Acts
of the Apostles
3a. The Acts of John recount the missionary
exploits of John the evangelist. He
performs many miracles such as healing the sick and bringing the dead back to
life, and these acts give credence to his proclamation of the Good News of the
gospel. One time he was attacked by a hoard
of bedbugs while sleeping, and he enjoined them “You bugs, be considerate,
leave your home for this night and go to rest in a place that is far away from
the servants of God.” John slept well
for the remainder of the night.
3b. The Acts of Paul exists as fragments. It might have originally included the Acts of
Thecla and Paul’s Third Letter to the Corinthians. In one episode Paul converts and baptizes a
talking lion who, years later, spares Paul before a crowd of spectators in the
arena. It describes the martyrdom of
Paul, an event not recountered in the Acts of the Apostles. After being beheaded milk, a symbol of life,
spurts from his wounds instead of blood.
After dying Paul fulfilled a promise by appearing to the emperor Nero
and declaring his imminent doom.
3c. The Acts of Peter recounts the missionary
activities of Peter, the miracles that he performed, and some sermons that he
preached. It explains how the Christian
leader Simon Peter came to Rome to counteract the pernicious influence of the
Gnostic leader Simon Magnus.
3d. The Acts of Thecla recount the exploits of
the woman Thecla who had been converted by Paul, and followed Paul’s
admonitions to live a life of asceticism, renouncing the pleasures of the
flesh. Her fiancé, as well as the
husbands and fiancés of other women converts, were very upset at the influence
that Paul was having, and he was arrested.
Thecla refused to marry her fiancé, was condemned to be burned at the
stake, was saved miraculously, and supposedly later accompanied Paul on his
journeys.
3e. The Acts of Thomas begins with the division
of the world into regions to be assigned to various apostles for
evangelization, and India was allocated to Thomas. This supports the well known tradition that
the Apostle Thomas brought Christianity to India. The Acts tells how Thomas was forced to go to India
to work as a carpenter for the King. It recounts miracles performed by Thomas,
and his preaching concerning the renunciation of material goods. The story is
told of the punishment of a man who committed a grave sin and then partook of
the Eucharist.
4. Apocryphal Apocalypses
The
New Testament has one apocalypse, the last book called Revelation. Before
Vatican II Catholic bibles called this book the Apocalypse. The word apocalypse is the Greek word for
revelation. More generally an apocalypse
often involves angels or heavenly beings, a transcendent world, and an eschatology
or treatment of last things such as the end of the world.
The NT book Revelation fits these criteria, as do
the apocryphal works about to be discussed.
The Shepherd of Hermas, which we treat in the next lecture as an
important apostolic document, is
sometimes classified as an apocryphal apocalypse.
4a. The Apocalypse of Peter is a gnostic
document in which Jesus is depicted as showing Peter the gnostic interpretation
of the events that took place at the Crucifixion. Jesus, an immortal spirit, laughs at the
failure of several attempts to kill him.
He forewarns Peter of the Church’s opposition to Gnosticism, and sets
him up as the foundation of the Gnostic faith.
The book begins: “The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of
the Dead.” It is the first Christian
work which includes an account of a journey through heaven and hell. The most
famous such work is of course Dante’s Divine Comedy (c. 1315). The book ends with an account of the
Transfiguration. There are two other
known works called Apocalypses of Peter.
4b. The Apocalypse of Paul receives its motivation
from chapter 12 of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians in which he talks
about being “caught up into Paradise and
heard ineffable things, which no one may utter.” The author of this apocalypse provides his
view of what these “unutterable things” might be. It describes Paul being carried up to heaven
and receiving a revelation about the fate of the individual souls of the just
and of sinners after death. He sees souls
leaving their bodies, appearing in the presence of God, and receiving rewards
or punishments according to how they had lived their lives. The description of paradise and the torments
of the condemned has strong parallels to the descriptions in the Apocalypse of
Peter which was written earlier.
4c. The Secret Book of John, also called the
Apocryphon of John, where John is the son of Zebedee, describes the Gnostic
myths of creation and redemption. It is
claimed that evil exists in the world, and those entrapped in mortal bodies who
have the special knowledge called gnosis are able to recognize their
predicament, so they have a way to escape.
4d. The work On the Origin of the World builds on
the opening chapters of Genesis, and develops a Gnostic vision of creation and
redemption. It describes the divine
pleroma or fullness which precedes creation, the coming forth of the creator
God Yaldabaoth and from him other divine beings, and finally the creation of
the material universe and the human race.
To some extent all this is an elaboration of, and an embellishment of,
the first chapters of Genesis. This
account is but one of the several diverse ways in which Gnostic Christians
explain the origin of the created world, and the significance of human beings.
4e. The First Thought in Three Forms also goes by
the title Trimorphic Protennoia. Like
the Secret Book of John, this work presents some of the key elements of Gnostic
thought. It emphasizes heavenly
revelations of divine gnosis which lead up to the Word made flesh. Protennoia or Thought, which is feminine, is
the first emanation from God. She has
three forms or permanences which are called Father, Mother and Son, or
alternately Voice, and Sound and Logos (i.e. Word). In Protennoia’s final descent from heaven
under the guise of human flesh she brings full illumination to those dwelling
in ignorance and darkness. The work
itself is written in a rather obscure manner, and what it says is wierd.
4f. The Hymn of the Pearl, which was originally a
separate work, became embedded in the Acts of Thomas. It reads like a folktale of a prince sent to
obtain a pearl from the lair of a fierce dragon in Egypt. When he arrived in Egypt he forgot who he
was, and why he was there. After a
reminder he snatched the pearl and returned home in glory. A deeper reading suggests that it is in
reality a Gnostic allegory of a soul in heaven which became entrapped in matter
in Egypt, lost its identity, was restored by a divine messenger, performed his
assigned task, and returned to heaven where he received the full heavenly
knowledge or gnosis.
5. Apocryphal Epistles and Other
Writings
In
this section we will discuss some additional New Testament Apocrypha which do
not fit the formats of the earlier categories of writings. Some of then are epistles, and others are
miscellaneous types. Many of them are
short and fragmentary.
5a. The Third Letter of Paul to the Corinthians
is a reply to a letter received in prison by St. Paul from the Christians
there. Some early churches accepted it
as canonical, and it plus the letter that prompted it were eventually
incorporated in the Acts of Paul (see Sect. 3b above). The letter received by Paul inquired how the
Christians in Corinth should respond to the preaching of the Gnostic heretics
Simon Magnus and Cleobius.. Paul
summarizes their teachings “that there is no need to consider the prophets;
that God is not the almighty; that there is no resurrection of the flesh; that
humans are not God’s creation; that the Lord did not come in the flesh; that he
was not born from Mary; that the world did not come from God but from the
angels.” Paul proceeds to refute such
“corrupt teachings.” by these ”offspring of vipers.”
5b. The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca is a
series of 14 forged letters between Paul and the famous Roman philosopher
Lucius Annaeus Seneca who died in 65 AD.
The tone of the letters is very friendly. Seneca writes that he is “saddened and
grieved” because “innocent people (i.e.
Christians) are repeatedly punished.”
5c. This Letter of Paul to the Laodiceans is
probably not the one mentioned by him in his letter to the Colossians
(4:16). Paul cautions the Laodiceans
“May you not be deceived by the vain talk of some people who tell tales that
may lead you away from the truth of the gospel which is proclaimed by me.” The letter may be a forgery.
5d. The Letter of Peter to James, and the
comments on its Reception by James, were included in the Homilies of Clement to
be commented on next. The Reception
mentions that
“We should be cautious in the matter of the
truth.”
5e. The Homilies of Clement consist of 24 sermons
supposedly preached by the fourth pope
Clement (88-97 AD) in Rome, and subsequently sent to James in Jerusalem. The homilies acknowledge Peter as the leader
and chief apostle of Christ’s Church, and as the bearer of Christ’s power.
5f. Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora is preserved in the
Panarion (Medicine Chest) of Epiphanius.
This is a letter of a Gnostic leader Ptolemy written to an orthodox
Christian woman seeking to convert her. He says that the law of God has three
subdivisions. The first part is what was
fulfilled by the Savior, such as the Ten Commandments. The second part was what was abolished, such
as taking vengeance. The third
subdivision “is the part whose referent has changed, and which was altered from
the physical to the spiritual - the allegorical part, which is ordained after
the image of the superior realm.” This
corresponds to the special secret
knowledge or gnosis which characterizes the heresy of Gnosticism.
5g. The Treatise on the Resurrection is sometimes
called the Letter to Rheginos. In the
spirit of Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora, it is a communication of an unknown
Gnostic leader to an orthodox Christian named Rheginos. Ir responds to Rheginos’ questions about
death and the resurrection by stressing the spiritual nature of the
resurrection. It typifies the elitism of
Gnosticism: “We are elected to salvation and redemption since we are
predestined from the beginning not to fall into the foolishness of those who
are without knowledge.”
5h. The Preaching of Peter, which was widely
circulated in the apostolic Church, has survived in part through quotations of
Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, John of Damascus, Gregory
Nazianzus, and Origen. It emphasizes the
superiority of Christianity over paganism, idol worship, and Judaism. The Savior fulfilled the predictions of the
prophets, and brought salvation to all.
It stresses that those who accept Christ must repent of their sins.
5i. Pseudo-Titus has the heading “Epistle of
Titus, the Disciple of Paul.” The letter
is a fifth century document which advocates chastity for all, and even asks
those who are married to abstain form marital relations. Thus it is a harsh assault on the pleasures
of the flesh.
6. Concluding Remarks
In
these notes we have surveyed the writings of the first two centuries of the
Christian era that were written in the formats of the various books of the New
Testament, but were in no way part of it. Many of these works furnish us with
insights into the NT times. Some of them
provide us with information which supplements what we already know from the
scriptures, while others tell us fanciful stories that are at best dubious, and
often simply false.
Some
modern biblical scholars and historians make the claim that these NT apocrypha inform us about the true
message of Jesus, a message which they
say is incomplete and distorted in Holy Scripture. They seek to utilize the NT apocrypha to undermine the authenticity of Catholicism and
all other Christian religions. They make
bizarre claims on flimsy evidence, such as that Mary Magdalene was the wife of
Jesus, and that a man named Thomas was his twin brother. An association of Biblical Scholars called the
“Jesus Seminar” published the Scholars Version (SV) which they claim
is the most accurate English translation of the New Testament because it is the
only one independent of control by
“ecclesiastical bodies.” Despite
this claim to accuracy they brag about how they translate “Kingdom of God” as
the expression “God’s imperial rule”, and “son of Man” as “son of Adam and
Eve.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I
wish to thank Mr. L. A. Marsha for a grant which helped to purchase the books
needed to prepare these lecture notes.
I
would like to thank Doris Christley for her critical reading of, and her
thoughtful comments and recommendations concerning, the first draft of this
work.