Note 259 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY.

The word Apocrypha was used originally to designate the secret books which contained the esoteric doctrine of a sect. The secondary sense ‘spurious’ was derived from the general character of these writings, which were heretical, generally Gnostic, forgeries. See Prof. Plumptre’s article Apocrypha in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, and the note on ἀπόκρυφοι below, ii. 3.