Hello everyone, this is Father Andrew.

In 2021, at the end of our Holy Week and Pascha episode, which was titled The Lord of

Spirits Goes to Hell, I read a short excerpt from the Heroing of Hell section of a text

variously referred to as the Gospel of Nicodemus, or the Acts of Pilate.

This text is generally regarded as an apocryphal New Testament text.

What does that mean?

It reflects traditions surrounding events of the New Testament that are not actually included

in Scripture, so this isn't a text from the Bible, and we don't treat it that way.

But one of the distinctions from the ancient church that we have mentioned many times

in the podcast is between three categories of books.

Books read in church, books read at home, and books not to be read.

The first category is Scripture, books read in church.

The last category, books not to be read, is heretical texts that are harmful to one's

salvation.

This text, the Gospel of Nicodemus, is that second category, books to be read at home.

A number of orthodox liturgical texts make use of this text, giving it an honored place

within our tradition of worship.

After I read that excerpt, we received a lot of positive feedback as this was many people's

first encounter with this amazing piece of writing that seems to have taken its present

form in the 4th or 5th century.

Because of that feedback, I wanted to read for you the Heroing of Hell in its entirety,

just found in the Gospel of Nicodemus.

...